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The Wharf by ' 

the Docks 

By Florence Warden, 

icUthor of “ The Mystery of the Inn by the Shore,” etc^ 



ILLUSTRATED BY WARREN B. DA 


NEW YORK 
ROBERT BONNER’S SONS 


SERIES 
No. 180. 


Publishers. 


John R. Musick’s New Novel. 


Mysterious . . . 

. . . Mr. Howard 

John R. Musick, 

AtUhor of ^'The Columbian Historical NovelsC, 

With Illustrations by Warren B. Bavis. 


12mo. 361 Pages, Handsomely Bcmnd in Cloth. Price, $1.00, 

Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


This is a novel of startling adventures and pictures of Western 
life. As its title indicates, it records the doings of a daring 
adventurer such as we find only in the rough life of our frontier 
settlements now rapidly disappearing. The interest in these 
characters is the same as that excited by Dumas’s famous heroes 
of his series of stories of “The Three Guardsmen.” Courage 
and danger, whether in conflicts of war, on land or sea, or in 
enterprises of less legitimate character, are always elements of 
fascination in fiction. This story gets its interest mainly from 
this source, although it has an interesting romance interwoven 
in the dark and mysterious career of its hero. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent postpaid 
on receipt of price by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


America’s Greatest Family Paper for 1896 



52 NUMBERS A YEAR. 


20 Pages Each Week. 8 Special Numbers, 

5 Cents a Copy. $2.00 a Year. 

ENLARGED AND IMPROVED. 

During 1896, the New York Ledger will contain more attractive reading 
matter than in any year of its splendid history. Its si*e will be 20 pag;es 
instead of 16 pages. This change of size will enable the publishers to 
give a much greater quantity of matter, for which arrangements have been 
made with the most popular writers. In addition to its continued stories, 
which have always been the best and most popular, it will publish illus- 
trated sketches, articles by famous preachers and authors on the leading 
topics of the day, a delightful Children’s Column, Correspondence Column, 
Scientific Articles, a department deyoted to fashions, household infor- 
mation and domestic affairs, entitled the Woman’s World, and a thousand 
and one articles on topics of general Interest, each number containing 
sornetbmg for every member of the family. 

The following is a partial list of our contributors for 1896 : 


Rudyard Kipling, 
Julian Hawthorne, 
Elizabeth Olmis, 
Jerome K. Jerome, 
Mary E. Wilkins, 
Florence Warden, 
S. Baring Gould, 
Ralph H. Shaw, 
Mrs. N. S. Stowell, 
• Anthony Hope, 
Mrs. Alexander, 
Amelia E. Barr, 
Eugene Field, 
Hamlin Garland, 
Martin Hunter, 


A. Conan Doyle, 

J. M. Barrie, 

Bret Harte, 

Brand er Matthews, 
Olive Thome Miller, 
Sarah Orae Jewett, 
Mary Kyle Dallas, 
The Duchess, 

Sarah Grand, 
Gilbert Parker, 
John R. Musick, 
Eben E. Rexford, 
Maxwell Gray, 

S. R. Crockett, 
Charles F. Holder, 


Prof. Felix Oswald, 

Mrs. Burton Harrison, 

Rev. Dr. John Hall, 

Rev. S. P. Cadman, 

Hall Caine, 

Seward W. Hopkins, 
Frank R. Stockton, 

R. D. Blackmore (Author 
of “Lorna Doone”), 
Stanley J. Weyman, 

Effie A. Rowlands, 

Miss Br addon, 

Ian Maclaren, 

Virginia Niles Leeds, 

Will Lisenbee. 


With such a list of contributors, the New York Ledger will be the most 
interesting weekly family paper published in the United States. Sample 
copies sent free on application. 

Address all communications to 


ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, Publishers 
Ledger Building, New York. 


Florence Warden’s Great Novel. 


The Mystery of the 
Inn by the Shore 


BY 

Florence Warden, 

Author of ''The House on the Marsh,"' etc. 


With Illustrations by Charles Kendilck. 


12mo. 314 Pagres. Handsomely Botmd in Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

Paper Cover, 60 Cents. 


This is the $i,ooo prize story recently published in the New 
York Ledger, and now reissued in book form. The story was a 
great success as a serial, and we do not doubt will be popular in 
book form. It is a good novel from beginning to end. The 
mystery is preserved so well that it is almost impossible to divine, 
with any degree of certainty, how the story will come out until 
the conclusion is reached. When published in the Ledger there 
were over one hundred thousand competing answers for the cash 
prizes, and the answers indicated a great body of interested and 
intelligent readers. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent postpaid 
on receipt of price by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


THE WHARF BY THE DOCKS. 







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THE WHARF BY THE DOCKS. 


51 Nouel. 

t 


BY 


FLORENCE WARDEN, 

Author of ^^The Mystery vf the hm by the Shore f etc. 



' NEW YORK: 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS. 


PUBLISHERS. ' , 

• ■ 

A. 

THE CHOICE 6ERIE8 ! ISSUED QUARTERLY. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM. NO. 180, > 

JUNE 1, 1896. ENTERED AT THE NEW YORK, N. Y., POST OFEICE, AS SECOND CLASS MAIL MATTER. 



I 


COPYRIGHT, 1896, 

BY ROBERT BOXNER’S SONS. 


(All rights reserved.) 






'^ 4 ' 



PRCtS OF 

THI NEW YORK LEDQiR 
NEW YORK. 


THE WHARF BY THE DOCKS. 


CHAPTER I. 

SOMETHING AMISS. 


E verybody knows Canterbury, with its Old- 
World charms and its ostentatious air of 
being content to be rather behind the times, 
of looking down upon the hurrying Americans who 
dash through its cathedral and take snap-shots at 
its slums, and at all those busy moderns who cannot 
afford to take life at its own jog-trot pace. 

But everybody 'does not know the charming old 
halls and comfortable, old-fashioned mansions which 
are dotted about the neighboring country, either 
nestling in secluded nooks of the Kentish valleys or 
holding a stately stand on the wooded hills. 

Of this latter category was The Beeches, a pretfy 
house of warm, red brick, with a dignified Jacobean 
front, which stood upon the highest ground of a 
prettily wooded park, and commanded one of those 
soft, undulating, sleepy landscapes which are so 
characteristically English, and of which grazing 

[ 7 1 


8 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


sheep and ruminating cows form so important a 
feature. A little tame, perhaps, but very pleasant, 
very homely, very sweet to look upon by the tired 
eyes that have seen enough of the active, bustling 
world 

Mr. George Wedmore, of the firm of Wedmore, 
Parkinson & Bishop, merchants of the city of Lon- 
don, had bought back the place, which had formerly 
belonged to his family, from the Jews into whose 
hands it had fallen, and had settled there to spend 
in retirement the latter end of his life, surrounded 
by a family who were not too well pleased to ex- 
change busy Bayswater for what they were flippant 
enough to call a wilderness. 

Dinner was over ; and Mr. Wedmore, in a snug 
easy-chair by the dining-room fire, was waiting for 
Doctor Haselden, who often looked in for a smoke 
and a game of chess with the owner of The 
Beeches. 

A lean, fidgety man, with thin hair and grayish 
whiskers, Mr. Wedmore looked less at home in the 
velveteen suit and gaiters which he persisted in 
wearing even in the evening, less like the country 
gentleman it was his ambition to be, than like the 
care-laden city merchant he at heart still was. 

On the other side of the table sat his better half, 
in whom it was easy to see he must have found all 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


9 


the charm of contrast to his own personality. A 
cheery, buxom woman, still handsome, full of life 
and fun, she had held for the whole of her married 
life a sway over her lord and master all the greater 
that neither of them was conscious of the fact. A 
most devoted and submissive wife, a most indulgent 
and affectionate mother, Mrs. Wedmore' occupied 
the not unenviable position of being half slave, 
half idol in her own household. 

The clock struck eight, and the bell rang. 

“ There he is ! There’s the doctor !” cried Mrs. 
Wedmore, with a beaming nod. Her husband sat 
up in his chair, and the troubled frown which he 
had worn all the evening grew a little deeper. 

1 should. like you, my dear, to leave us together 
this evening,” said he. 

Mrs. Wedmore jumped up at once, gathering her 
balls of wool and big knitting-needles together with 
one quick sweep of the arm. 

“ All right, dear,” said she, with another nod, giv- 
ing him an anxious look. 

Mr. Wedmore perceived the look and smiled. He 
stretched out his hand to lay it gently on his wife’s 
arm as she passed him. 

“ Nothing about me. Nothing for you to be 
alarmed about,” said he. 

Mrs. Wedmore hesitated a moment. She had her 


lo The Wharf by the Docks, 


suspicions, and she would dearly have liked to know 
more. But she was the best trained of wives ; and 
after a moment’s pause, seeing that she was to hear 
nothing further, she said, good-humoredly : “ All 
right, dear,” and left the room, just in time to shake 
hands with Doctor Haselden as she went put. 

Now, while the host found it impossible to shake 
off the signs of his old calling, the doctor was a man 
who had never been able to assume them. From 
head to foot there was no trace of the doctor in his 
appearance ; he looked all over what at heart he 
was — the burly, good-humored, home-loving, land- 
loving country gentleman, who looked upon Great 
Datton, where his home was, as the pivot of the 
world. 

However he was dressed, he always looked shabby, 
and he could never have been mistaken for any- 
thing but an English gentleman. 

He shook hands with Mr. Wedmore, with a smile. 
These poor Londoners, trying to acclimatize them- 
-selves, amused him greatly. He looked upon them 
much as the Londoner looks upon the Polish Jew 
immigrants — with pity, a little jealousy, and no 
little scorn. 

“ Where ’s Carlo ?” asked he. 

“ Oh, Carlo was a nuisance, so I ’ve sent him to 
the stable,” said Mr. Wedmore, with the slightly 


The Wharf by the Docks. 1 1 

colder manner which, he instantly assumed if any 
grievance of his, however small, was touched upon. 

Carlo was a young retriever, which Mr. Wed- 
more, in the stern belief that it was the proper 
thing in a country house, had encouraged about the 
house until his habits of getting between every- 
body’s legs and helping himself to the contents of 
everybody’s plate had so roused the ire of the rest 
of the household that Mr. Wedmore had had to 
give way to the universal prejudice against him. 

The doctor shook his head. Lack of capacity for 
managing a dog was just what one might have ex- 
pected from these new-comers. 

Mr. Wedmore turned his chair to face that of the 
doctor, and spoke in the sharp, incisive tones of a 
man who has serious business on hand. 

“ I ’ve been hoping you would drop in every 
night for the last fornight,” said he, “and as you 
didn’t come, I was at last obliged to send for you. 
I have a very important matter to consult you 
about. You’ve brought your pipe?” The doctor 
produced it from his pocket. “ Well, fill it, and 
listen. It ’s about young Horne — Dudley Horne — 
that I want to speak to you, to consult you, in fact.” 

The doctor nodded as he filled his pipe. 

“ The young barrister I ’ve met here, who ’s 
engaged to your elder daughter ?” 


12 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


“ Well, she was all but engagedto him,” admitted 
Mr. Wedmore, in a grudging tone. ‘‘ But I ’m 
going to put a stop to it, and I ’ll tell you why.” 
Here he got up, as if unable to keep still in the 
state of excitement into which he was falling, and 
stood with his hands behind him and his back 
to the fire. “ I have a strong suspicion that the 
young man ’s not quite right here.” And lowering 
his voice, Mr. Wedmore touched his forehead. 

“Good gracious! You surprise me!” cried the 
doctor. “ He always seemed to me such a clever 
young fellow. Indeed, you said so to me yourself.” 

“ So he is. Very clever,” said Mr. Wedmore, 
shortly. “ I don’t suppose there are many young 
chaps of his age — for he ’s barely thirty — at the Bar 
whose prospects are as good as his. But, for all 
that, I have a strong suspicion that he ’s got a tile 
loose, and that ’s why I wanted to speak to you. 
Now his father was in a lunatic asylum no less than 
three times, and was in one when he died.” 

The doctor looked grave. 

“ That ’s a bad history, certainly. Do you know 
how the father’s malady started ?” 

“ Why, yes. It was the effect of a wound in the 
head received when he was' a young man out in 
America, in the war with Mexico in ’46.” 

“That isn’t the sort of mania that is likely to 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


I 


come down from father to son,” said, the doctor, “if 
his brain was perfectly sound before, and the re-- 
current mania the result of an accident.” 

“ Well, so I Ve understood. And the matter has 
never troubled me at all until lately, when I have 
begun to detect certaii^ morbid tendencies in Dud- 
ley, and a general change which makes me hesitate 
to trust him with the happiness of my daughter.” 

“ Can you give me instances ?” asked the doctor, 
although he began to feel sure that whatever opin- 
ion he might express on the matter, Mr. Wedmore 
would pay little attention to any but his own. 

“ Well, for you to understand the case, I must tell 
you a little more about the lad’s father. He and I 
were very old friends — chums from boyhood, in 
fact. When he came back from America — where 
he went from a lad’s love of adventure — he made a 
good marriage from a monetary point of view ; 
married a wharf on the Thames, in fact, somewhere 
Limehouse way, and settled down as a wharfinger. 
He was a steady fellow, and did very well, until one 
fine morning he was found trying to cut his throat, 
and had to be locked up. Well, he was soon out 
again that time, and things went on straight enough 
for eight or nine years, by which time he had done 
very well-made a lot of money by speculation — 
and was thinking of retiring from business alto- 


H 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


gether. Then, perhaps it was the extra pressure 
of his increased business, but, at any rate, he broke 
out again, tried to murder his wife that time, and 
did, in fact, injure her so much that she died shortly 
afterward. Of course, he had to be shut up again ; 
and a man named Edward- Jacobs, a shrewd Jew, 
who was his confidential clerk, carried on the busi- 
ness in his absence. Now, both Horne and his wife 
had had the fullest confidence in this Jacobs^ but 
he turned out all wrong. As soon as he learned, at 
the end of about twelve months, that Horne was 
coming out again, he decamped with everything he 
could lay his hands on ; and from the position of 
affairs you may guess that he made a very good 
haul. Well, poor Horne found himself in a maze 
of difficulties ; in fact„his clerk’s fraud ruined him. 
Everything that could be sold or mortgaged had to 
go to the settlement, and when his affairs had been 
finally put straight, there was only a little bit left, 
that had been so settled upon his wife that no one 
could touch it. He made a good fight of it for a 
little while, with the help of a few old friends, but, 
in the end, he broke down again for the third time. 
But he escaped out of the asylum and went abroad, 
without seeing his friends or his child, and a few 
months afterward the announcement of his death 
in an American asylum was sent by a correspondent 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


15 


out there. Happily there were no difficulties about 
securing the mother’s money for the son, and it was 
enough to educate the boy and to give him a start ; 
but, of course, he had to begin the world as a poor 
man instead of a rich one. Perhaps that was all 
the better for him — or so I thought until lately.” 

‘‘ And what are these signs of a morbid tendency 
that you spoke of?” asked the doctor. 

Well, in the first place, after being almost ex- 
travagant in his devotion to my daughter, Doreen, 
he now neglects her outrageously — comes down 
very seldom, writes short letters or none. Now, my 
daughter is not the sort of girl that a sane man 
would neglect,” added Doctor Wedmore, proudly. 

“Certainly, not,” assented the doctor, inwardly 
thinking that it was much less surprising than it 
would have been in the case of one of hi3 own girls. 

“ In the second place, he is always harping upon 
the subject of Jacobs and his peculations — an old 
subject, which he might well let rest. And, in the 
third place, he has become moody, morose and ab- 
sent-minded ; and my son. Max, who often visits 
him at his chambers in Lincoln’s Inn, has noticed 
the change even more than I, who have fewer op- 
portunities of seeing him.” 

The doctor was puffing -stolidly at his pipe and 
looking at the fire. 


i6 


The Wharf by the Doc Is. 


“ It is very difficult to form an opinion upon re- 
port only,” said he. “ Frankly, I can see nothing 
in what you have told me about the young man 
which could not be explained in other and likelier 
ways. He may have got entangled, for instance, 
with some woman in London.” 

Mr.- Wedmore took fire at this suggestion. 

In that case, the sooner Doreen forgets all about 
him the better.” 

“ Mind, I ’m only suggesting !” put in the doctor, 
hastily. “ There may be a dozen more reasons — ” 

“ I shall not wait to find them out,” said Mr. 
Wedmore, decisively. He and Max are coming 
down together this evening. My wife would have 
them to help in organizing some affair they ’re get- 
ting up for Christmas. I ’ll send him to the right- 
about without any more nonsense.” 

But surely that is hardly — ” 

“ Hardly what ?” snapped out Mr. Wedmore, as 
he poked the fire viciously. 

“ Well, hardly fair to either of the young people. 
Put a few questions to him yourself, or better still, 
let your wife do it. It may be only a storm in -a 
teacup, after all. Remember, he is the son of your 
old friend. And you wouldn’t like to have it on 
your conscience that you had treated him harshly.” 
The doctor’s advice was sane and sound enough. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 1 7 

but Mr. Wedmore was not in the mood to listen to 
it. That notion of an entanglement with another 
woman rankled in his pi:t>ud mind, and made him 
still less inclined to be patient and forbearing. 

“ 1 shall give Doreen warning of what I am going 
to do at once,” said he, before Horne turns up.” 

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. He was ob- 
stinate himself. 

Mr. Wedmore crossed the long room to the door, 
and opened it sharply. 

The hall was full of people and of great bales 
of goods, which were piled upon the center-table 
and heaped up all around it. 

“ Doreen !” he called, sharply. 

Out of the crowd there rushed a girl — such a girl ! 
One of those radiant creatures who explain the cult 
of womanhood ; who make it difficult even for sober- 
minded, middle-aged men and matrons to realize 
that this is nothing but flesh and blood like them- 
selves ; one of those beautiful creatures who claim 
worship as a right and who repay it with kindness 
and brightness and sweetness and laughter. 

No house was ever dull that held Doreen Wed- 
more. 

She was a tall girl, brown-haired, brown^eyed, 
made to laugh and to live in the sunshine. Nobody 
could resist her, and nobody ever tried to. 


i8 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


She sprang across the hall to her father and 
whirled him back into the dining-room, and put her 
back against it. 

Dudley’s come !” said she. “ He’s in the hall — 
among the blankets !” 

“ Blankets !” 

“ Yes.” She was crossing the room by this time 
to the doctor, whom she had quickly perceived, and 
was holding out her hand to him. “You must 
know, doctor, that we are up to our eyes in blankets 
just now, and in bundles of red flannel, and in soup 
and coals. Papa has been reading up Christmas in 
the country in the olden time, and he finds that to 
be correct you must deluge the neighborhood with 
those articles. They are not at all what the people 
want, as far as I can make out. . But that doesn’t 
matter. It pleases papa to demoralize the neigh- 
borhood ; so we’re doing it. And mamma helps 
him. She dates from the prehistoric period when 
a wife really swore to obey her husband ; so she 
does it through thick and thin. Of course, she 
knows better all the time. She could always set 
papa right if she chose. Whatever happens, papa 
must be obeyed. So when he wants to run his dear 
old head into a noose, she dutifully holds it open for 
him, when all the time she knows how uncomfort- 
able he ’ll be till he gets out.” 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


^9 


“ You ’re a saucy puss, Miss !” cried her father, 
trying to frown, but betraying his delight in his 
daughter’s merry tongue by the twinkle in his 
eyes. 

And that ’s the right sort of woman for a wife,” 
said the old doctor, enthusiastically. “ I must say 
I think it ’s a bad sign when young girls think they 
can improve upon their own mothers.” 

“ She doesn’t mean half she says,” said her father, 
indulgently. 

Oh, yes, she does,” retorted Doreen. “ And she 
wants to know, please, what it is you have to say to 
Dudley.” 

The doctor rose from his chair, and Mr. Wedmore 
frowned. 

“ And it ’s no use putting me off by telling me 
not to ask questions. I ’m not mamma, you know.” 

“ I intend to ask him — something about you.” 

It was the girl’s turn to frown now. 

“ Please don’t, papa,” said she, in a lower voice. 
“ I know you ’re going to worry him, and to put 
your hands behind your back and ask him conun- 
drums, and to make all sorts of mischief, under the 
impression that you are putting things right. And 
if you only just wouldn’t, everything would soon be 
as right as possible. While if you persist—” 

But Mr. Wedmore interrupted her, not harshly, 


20 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


as he would have done anybody else, but with 
decision. 

“You must trust me to know best, my dear. It 
is better for you both that we should come to some 
understanding. Haselden, you ’ll excuse me for 
half an hour, won’t you? And you, Doreen,” and 
he turned again to his daughter, “ stay with the 
doctor here, and try to talk sense till I come back 
again.” 

And Mr. Wedmore went quickly out of the room, 
without giving the girl a chance of saying anything 


more. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


21 


CHAPTER IL 

MAX MAKES A DISCOVERY. 

Doreen’s bright face lost a little of its color and 
much of its gayety as her father disappeared. The 
doctor felt .sorry for her. 

“ Come, come ; cheer up, my dear,” he said. “ If 
he loves you honestly, and I don’t know how he 
can fail to do so, a few words with your father will 
put matters all right. There is nothing to look so 
sad about, I think.” 

But Doreen gave him one earnest, questioning 
look, and then her eyelids fell again. 

“You don’t know,” she said, in a low voice. 
“ Papa doesn’t understand Dudley ; but I think I 
do. He is very sensitive and rather reserved about 
himself. If papa interferes now, he will offend 
him, and Dudley may very likely go off at once, 
and perhaps never come near me again. He is 
proud — very proud.” 

“ But if he could behave like that,” replied the 
doctor, quickly, “if he could throw over such a 


22 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


nice girl as you for no reason worth speaking of, I 
should call him a nasty-tempered fellow, whom you 
ought to be glad to be rid of.” 

“ Ah, but you would be wrong,” retorted Doreen, 
with a little flush in her face, “ It is quite true that 
he has neglected me a little lately, written short 
letters, and not been down to see me so often. But 
I am sure there was some better reason for his con- 
duct than papa thinks. And if I feel so sure, and 
if I am ready to trust him, why shouldn’t papa 
be ?” 

The doctor smiled at her ingenuousness. 

“ Your father is right in claiming that he ought 
to be made acquainted with the young man’s reason 
for conduct which looks quite unwarrantable on the 
face of it,” said he. 

But Doreen gave a little sigh. 

“ I don’t think that a man has a right to turn in- 
quisitor over another man, just because the second 
man is ready to marry the first man’s daughter,” 
said she. “ And I ’m sure papa wouldn’t have stood 
it when he was young.” 

The doctor laughed. 

“ He ought to put up with any amount of ques- 
tioning rather than lose the girl of his choice,” said 
he decisively. “ And if he has the stuff of a man 
in him he will do so.” 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


23 


“ But he is unhappy. ♦ I know it,” said Doreen. 

“ Unhappy !” cried the doctor, indignantly. And 
what ’s he got to be unhappy about, I should like 
to know ? He ought to be thanking Heaven on his 
knees all day long for getting such a nice girl to 
promise to marry him. That ’s the attitude a young 
man used to take when I was young.” 

‘‘ Did you go down on your knees all day long 
when Mrs. Haselden promised to marry you ?” 
asked Doreen, recovering her sauciness at the 
notion. “ And why should he do it till he knows 
what sort of a wife I am going lo make ? And why 
should he go down on his knees more than I on 
mine ? When there are more women in the world 
than men, too !” 

The doctor shook his head. 

“ Ah, there is no arguing with you saucy girls,” 
said he. But I know that I, for my part, don’t 
know of a man in the whole world who is worthy 
to marry one of my daughters.” 

As the doctor finished speaking, the door was 
opened quickly, and Mr. Wedmore came in, looking 
white and worried. 

Doreen ran to him with an anxious face. 

“ What have you done, papa, what have you done ? 
Did you see him ? What did you say? What did 
you say ?” 


24 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


Mr. Wedmore put his arm around his daughter, 
and kissed her tenderly. 

“ Don’t trouble your head about him any more, 
my dear child,” said he in a husky voice. He 
isn’t worth it. He isn’t worthy of you.” 

Doreen drew away from her father, looking into 
his face with searching eyes and with.an expression 
full of fear. 

“Papa, what do you mean? You have sent him 
away ?” 

Mr. Wedmore answered in a loud and angr)^ 
voice ; but it was clear enough that the anger was 
not directed against his daughter. 

“ I did not send him away. He took himself off. 
I had hardly begun to speak to him — and I began 
quite quietly, mind — when he made the excuse of a 
letter which he found waiting for him, to go back 
to town. Without any ceremony, he rushed out of 
the study into the hall, and snatched up his hat and 
coat to go.” 

“ And is he gone ?” asked Doreen, in a low voice, 
as she staggered back a step. 

“ Oh, yes, I suppose so. And a good riddance, 
too. There was no letter at all for him, I sup- 
pose.” 

“ Yes, ther# was a letter!” faltered Doreen. 

She gave a glance round her ; seemed to remem. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


25 


ber suddenly the presence of a third person, for she 
blushed deeply on meeting the doctor’s eyes ; then, 
without another word, she sprang across the room 
to the door. 

“Where are you going?” cried her father, as he 
followed her into the hall. 

But she did not answer. The hall-door was clos- 
ing with a loud clang. 

Doreen was not the girl to lose her lover for want 
of a little energy. She was fonder of Dudley than 
people imagined. There is always an inclination 
in the general mind to consider that a person of 
lively temperament is incapable of a deep feeling. 
And Mr. Wedmore had only shown a common tend- 
ency in believing that his beautiful and brilliant 
daughter would easily give up the lover whom he 
considered unworthy of her. But he was wrong. 
Much too high-spirited and too happy in her tem- 
perament and surroundings to brood over her lover’s 
late negligence, she was perhaps too vain to believe 
that she had lost her hold upon his heart. At any 
rate, she liked him too well to give him up in this 
off-hand fashion without making an effort to dis- 
cover the reason of his present mysterious conduct. 

That letter which he had used as an excuse for 
his sudden departure had arrived at The Beeches 
by the afternoon post. Doreen had seen it with her 


26 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


own eyes ; had noted with some natural curiosity that 
the direction was ill-spelled, ill-written ; that the 
chirography was that of an almost illiterate female 
correspondent ; and that the post-mark showed that 
it came from the East End of London. Rather a 
strange letter for the smart young barrister to re- 
ceive, perhaps. And the thought of it made Doreen 
pause when she had got outside the door on the 
broad drive between the lawns. 

Only for the moment. The next she was flying 
across the rougher grass outside the garden among 
the oaks and the beeches of the park. She saw no 
one in front of her, and for a few seconds her heart 
beat very fast. She thought she had missed him. 

There was no lodge at the park entrance ; only a 
modest wooden gate in the middle of the fence. 
Doreen was hesitating whether to go through or to 
go back, when she saw the figure of Dudley Horne 
coming toward the gate from the stables. 

So she waited. 

As he came nearer, she, hidden from his sight by 
the trunk of an old oak-tree, grew uneasy and shy. 
Dark though it was, dimly as she could see him, 
Doreen felt convinced, from the rapid, steady pace 
at which he walked, that he was intent upon some 
set purpose, that he was not driven by pique at her 
father’s words. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


27 


He came quite close to her, so that she saw his 
face. A dark-complexioned, strong face it 'was, 
clean-shaven, not handsome at all. But, on the 
other hand, it was just such a face -as women ad- 
mire ; full of character, of ambition, of virility. 
Doreen had been debating with herself whether she 
dared speak to him ; but the moment she got a full 
look at his face, her courage died away. 

It was plain to her that, whatever might be the 
subject of the thoughts which were agitating his 
mind, she had no share in them. 

So she let him pass out, and then crept back, 
downcast, shocked, ashamed, up the slope to the 
house. 

She got in by the billiard-room, at the window of 
which she knocked. Max, her brother, who was 
playing a game with Queenie, his younger sister, 
let her in, and cried out at sight of her white face : 

Hello ! Doreen, what ’s up ? Had a row'with 
Dudley? Or what?” 

“ I have had no ‘row’ with any one,” answered 
the girl, very quietly. “ But — you must all know 
all about it presently, so you may as well hear it at 
once — Dudley has gone away.” 

“ What ?” 

Max stopped in the act of trying for a carom, and 
stared at his sister. 


28 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


“ Why, he only came when I did, ten minutes 
ago 

He ’s gone, I tell you ! ’ repeated Doreen, stamp- 
ing her foot. “ And — and listen. Max, I ’m fright- 
ened about him ! He ’s got something on his mind. 
When he went away, I saw him ; I was standing by 
the gate ; he looked so — so dreadful ihsit I didn’t 
dare to speak to him. I ! Think of that !” 

“ Had papa been speaking to him ?” put in the 
shrewd younger sister, who was chalking her cue 
at the other end of the room. 

The younger sister always sees most of the 
game. 

“Ye — es, but — I don’t know — I hardly think it 
was that,’’ answered Doreen quickly. “ At any rate. 
Max, I want you to do this for me ; I want you to 
go up to town to-morrow and see him. I shan’t 
rest until I know he ’s — he ’s all right — after what 
I saw of his face and the look on it. Now, you will 
do this, won’t you, won’t you? Without saying 
anything to anybody, mind. Queenie, you can hold 
hold your tongue, too. Now, Max, there ’s a dear, 
you’ll do it, won’t you?” 

Max told her that she was “ off her head,” that he 
could do no good, and so on. • But he ended in giv- 
ing way to the will of his handsome sister, whom 
he adored. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


29 


Max Wed more was a good-looking fellow of five- 
and-twenty, with a reputation as a ne’er-do-weel, 
which, perhaps, he hardly deserved. His father 
had a great idea of bringing the young man up to 
some useful calling to keep him out of mischief. 
Not very terrible mischief, for the most part ; only 
the result of too much leisure and too much money 
in inexperienced hands. The upshot of this differ- 
ence of opinion between father and son was that 
while Mr. Wedmore was 1 ways finding mercantile 
situations for his son. Max was always taking care 
to be thrown out of them after a few weeks, and 
taking a rest which was by no means well earned. 

This errand of his sister’s was by no means un- 
welcome to him, since it took him back to town, 
where he could amuse himself better than he could 
in the country. 

So, on the following morning, he found some sort 
of excuse to take him up, and started on his journey 
with the blessings of Doreen, and with very little 
opposition from his father, who was subdued and 
thankful to have got rid of Dudley with so little 
trouble. 

It was soon after three when Max arrived at 
Dudley Horne’s chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. Of 
course, Dudley was out ; so Max scribbled a note for 
his friend and left it on the table while he went to 


30 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


the Law Courts to look for him. Not finding him 
anywhere about, Max filled up the day in his own 
fashion, and returned to Dudley’s room at about 
seven o’clock, when he supposed that his friend 
would either return to dinner or look in on his way 
to dine elsewhere. 

He waited an hour, then went away and filled up 
his time at a music-hallj and returned once more at 
a quarter to eleven. Dudley, so he was told by the 
old woman who gave him the information, had not, 
as far as she knew, been in his rooms since the 
morning. 

Max, who was a great friend of Dudley’s, and 
could take any liberty he pleased in his precincts, 
lit the gas and the sitting-room fire, and installed 
himself in an arm-chair with a book. He could not 
read, however, for he was oppressed by some of 
Doreen’s own fears. He was well acquainted with 
all his friend’s ways, and he knew that for him to 
be away both from his chambers and from the 
neighborhood of the Courts for a whole day was 
most unusual with that particularly steady, plodding 
young man. He began to worry himself with the . 
remembrance that Dudley had not been himself of 
late, that he had been moody, restless and unsettled 
without apparent cause. 

Finally, Max worked himself into such a state of 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


31 


anxiety about his friend that when he at last heard 
the key turned in the lock of the outer door, he 
jumped up excitedly and made a rush for the 
door. 

Before he reached it, however, he he^rd footsteps 
in the adjoining bedroom, the heavy tread of a man 
stumbling about in the dark, the overthrowing of 
some of the furniture. 

Surely that could not be Dudley ! 

Max stood still at the door, listening. He thought 
it might be a thief who had got hold of the key of 
the chambers. 

As he stood still, close by the wall, the door which 
led from the one room to the other was thrown open 
from the bedroom, almost touching him as it fell 
back ; and there staggered into the sitting-room, 
into the light thrown by the gas and the fire, a 
figure which Max could scarcely recognize as Dud- 
ley Horne. His face was the grayish white of the 
dead ; his eyes were glassy ; his lips were parted ; 
while the grime of a London fog had left its black 
marks round his mouth and eyes, giving him an 
appearance altogether diabolical. He was shaking 
like a leaf as he stumbled against a chair and sud- 
denly wheeled round to the light. 

Then, unbuttoning his overcoat quickly, he looked 
down at his clothes underneath. He passed his 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


hand over them and held it in the light, with a 
shudder. 

Max uttered a sharp cry. 

The stain on Dudley’s hand, the wet patches 
which glistened on his dark clothes, were stains of 
blood. - 


CHAPTER III. 

DUDLEY EXPI.AINS. 

As the cry of horror escaped the lips of Max, 
Dudley wheeled quickly round and met his eyes. 

For a moment the two men stood staring at each 
other without uttering a word. It seemed to Max 
that his friend did not recognize him ; that he 
looked like a hunted man brought to bay by his 
pursuer, with the furtive expression in his eyes of 
a creature trying to devise some means of escape. 

It was the most shocking experience that Max had 
ever known, and the blood seemed to freeze in his 
veins as he stood by the table watching his friend, 
trying to conjure back a smile to his own face and 

look of welcome into his own eyes. 

He found his voice at last. 

“ Why, Horne,” cried he, and he was angry with 


MAX SCARCELY RECOGNIZED THE FIGURE THAT STAGGERED INTO THE SITTING-ROOM.— iS’ee Page 31 


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The Wharf by the Docks. 


33 



himself as he noted that his voice was^hoarse and 
tremulous, and that he could not manage to bring 
out his natural tones, “ what have you been doing 
with yourself ? I — I ’ve been backward and forward 
here all day long, and now I ’ve been waiting for 
you ever so long !” 

There was a pause. Dudley was still staring at 
him, but there was gradually coming over his face 
a change which showed recognition, followed by 
annoyance. He drew himself up, and, after a 
pause, asked, stiffly : 

“ What did you want with me ?” 

He spoke more naturally than Max had managed 
to do, and as the latter replied, he took out his 
pocket-handkerchief very calmly and began to wipe 
the stain o|| his right hand. 

Max shuddered. ^ 

“ Why, is it such a very unusual thing for me to 
drop in upon you and to want to see you ?” he asked, 
with another attempt at his ordinary manner, which 
failed almost as completely as the first had done. 

There was another short pause. Dudley, without 
looking again at his friend, examined his hand, saw 
that it was now clean, and replaced the soiled hand- 
kerchief in his pocket. He seemed by this time to 
be thoroughly at his ease, but Max was not de- 
ceived. 


34 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


“ Of course not/’ said Dudley, quickly. “ I only 
meant that — considering ” — he paused, and seemed 
to be trying to recollect something — “ considering 
what took place down at Datton yesterday and how 
anxious your father seemed to be rid of me — ” 

“ But what has my father got to do with me, as 
far as you are concerned, Dudley, eh ?” said Max. 

There had come upon him suddenly such a strong 
impression that his friend was in some awful diffi- 
culty, some scrape so terrible as to make him lonely 
beyond the reach of help, that Max, who was a 
good-hearted fellow and a stanch friend, spoke with 
something which might almost be called tender- 
ness : 

“We’ve always been chums, now, haven’t we ? 
And a row between you and Doreen, or between 
you and my father, wouldn’t make any difference to 
me. I — I suppose you don’t mean to give me the 
cold shoulder for the future, eh ?” 

Dudley had turned his back upon him, and was 
standing on the hearth-rug, looking down at the 
fire, in an attitude which betrayed to his friend the 
uneasiness from which he was suffering. It was an 
attitude of constraint, as different as possible from 
any in which Max had ever seen him. 

Another pause. Dudley seemed unable on this 
occasion to give a simple answer to a simple ques- 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


35 


tion without taking thought first. At last he 
laughed awkwardly and half turned toward Max. 

Why, of course not,” said he, but without hearti- 
nef5s. Of course not. Though it will be rather 
awkward, mind, for us to see much of each other 
just at first, after my having got kicked out like 
that, won’t it ?” 

The tone in which Max answered betrayed con- 
siderable surprise and perplexity. 

“ Kicked out !” he exclaimed. ‘‘ My father said 
he hardly got a word out before you took yourself 
off in a huff.” 

Dudley turned round quickly and faced him this 
time, with a sullen look of defiance on his dark face. 

“ Well, the wise man doesn’t wait to be kicked 
out,” said he. “ He removes himself upon the 
slightest hint that such a proceeding on his part 
would be well received.” 

You were a little too quick on this occasion,” 
replied Max, dryly, “ for my father has got himself 
into hot water, and mother had a fit of crying, while 
Doreen — ” 

Something made Max hesitate to tell his friend 
how Doreen had taken his desertion. Max himself 
was ready to stand by his friend, whatever diffi- 
culties the latter might be in. But Doreen, his 
lovely sister, must have a lover without reproach, 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


A t the mention of the girl’s name there came a 
slight change over Dudley’s face — a change which 
struck the sensitive Max and touched him deeply. 
Dudley took a step in the direction of his bedroom, 
and pulled out his watch. As he did so a railroad 
ticket jerked out of his pocket with the watch and 
fell to the ground. 

Max saw it fall, but before he could pick it up or 
draw attention to it his ideas were diverted by 
Dudley’s next words : 

“ Well, you ’ll excuse me, old chap. I ’ve got to 
see a friend off by the midnight train to Liver- 
pool.” 

As he spoke Dudley turned, with his hand on the 
door, to cast a glance at Max. He seemed to be 
asking himself what he should tell the other. And 
then he took a step toward his friend and began an 
explanation, which, as his shrewd eyes told him. 
Max required. 

‘‘ The fact is that I got into the way of a beastly 
accident at Charing Cross just now. Woman run 
over — badly hurt. Got myself covered with blood. 
Ugh!” 

Max was convinced that the shudder was genuine, 
although he had doubts — of which he was ashamed 
— about the tale itself. 

And how did that explain the proposed journey ? 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


37 


Dudley went on : 

I Ve only just got time to change my clothes 
and make myself decent. See you in a day or two. 
Sorry I can’t stay and have a pipe with you and one 
of our ' hard-times ’ suppers.” 

He was on the point of disappearing into the 
inner room, when Max stopped him. 

“ Oh, but you can,” said he. “ I have something 
particular to say to you, and I can wait till you 
come back, if it ’s two o’clock, and I can bring in 
the supper myself.” 

Dudley frowned impatiently, and again he cast at - 
Max the horrible, furtive look which had been his 
first greeting. 

That ’s impossible,” said he, quickly. “ I may 
have to go on to Liverpool myself. Good-night.” 

And he shut himself into the bedroom. 

Max felt cold all over. After a few minutes’ hesi- 
tation, he went out of the chambers, down the stairs 
and out of the house. 

At the door a cab was waiting. The driver spoke 
to him the moment he stepped out on the pave- 
ment. Evidently he took him for Dudley, his late 
fare. 

“ The lady ’s got out an’ gone off, sir. I hollered 
after her, but she wouldn’t wait. Oh, beg pardon, 
sir,” and the man touched his hat, perceiving his 


38 


The ]Vharf by the Docks. 


mistake ; “ I took you for the gentleman I brought 
here with the lady.” 

“ Oh, he ’ll be down in a minute or two,” answered 
Max. 

And then he thought he would wait and see what 
new developments the disappearance of the lady 
would lead to. He was getting sick with alarm 
about his friend. These instances of the blood- 
stained clothes, the possible journey to Liverpool, 
and the flight of the mysterious lady, were so sus- 
picious, taken in conjunction with each other, that 
Max found it impossible to rest until he knew more. 
He walked a little way along the pavement, and then 
returned slowly in the middle of the road. He had 
done this for the third time when Dudley dashed 
out of the house with rapid steps, and had reached 
the step of the hansom before he discovered that the 
vehicle was empty. 

An exclamation of dismay escaped his lips, and to 
the cabman’s statement of the lady’s disappearance 
he replied by asking sharply in which direction she 
had gone. On receiving the information he wanted, 
he gave the man his fare, and walked rapidly away 
in the direction the cabman had indicated. 

Max followed. 

Every moment increased his belief that some 
appalling circumstance had occurred by which 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


39 


Dudley’s mind had for the time lost its balance. 
Every word, look and movement on the part of his 
friend betrayed the fact. Now he was evidently 
setting off in feverish haste in pursuit of this woman 
whom he had left in the cab ; and Max, who believed 
that his friend was on the brink of an attack of the 
^ * h old Mr. Wedmore feared, resolved 
Isteps, and not to let his friend go out 



:ht until the latter got safely back to his 


went at a great pace into Holborn, and 


then he stopped. The traffic had dwindled down to 
an occasional hansom and to a thin line of foot- 
passengers on the pavements. He looked to right, 
^ left, and then he turned suddenly and came face 
^6 face with Max. 

“ Hello !” cried he. “ Where are you going to ? 
Where are you putting up ?” 

“ At the Arundel,” answered Max, taken aback, 
and stammering a little. 

Dudley had recovered his usual tones. 

“ Come to my club,” said he. “ We can get some 
supper there and have that pipe.” 

“ But how about Liverpool and the friend you had 
to see off?” asked Max. 

Dudley hesitated ever so slightly. 

Oh, he ’s given me the slip,” he answered, in a 


40 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


tone which sounded careless enough. “ Gone off 
without waiting for me. So my conscience is free 
on his score.” 

Max said nothing for a moment. Then he 
thought himself justified in setting a trap for his 
friend. 

“ Who is he ?” asked he. A;iybody I ki 

“No,” replied Dudley. “A'lnaul^i 
country, who showed me a good deal of k tndnj 
From Yorkshire. Man named Brownid 
good fellow, but erratic. Said he’d wait f^^^ in 
the cab, and disappeared before I could come down. 
Had an idea I should make him lose his train, I 
suppose. Well, never mind him. Come along.” 

Max went with him in silence. Dudley had^ 
only got back his usual spirits, but seemed toT^ lii 
a mood of loquacity and liveliness unusual with 
him. When they got to the club, he ordered oysters 
and a bottle of champagne, and drank much more 
freely than was his custom. 

It was Max, the ne’er-do-weel, the extravagant 
one, who drank little and did the listening. Dud- 
ley had cast off altogether the gravity and taciturn- 
ity which sometimes got him looked upon as a bit 
of a prig, and chatted and told his friend stories, 
with a tone and manner of irresponsible gayety 
which became him ill. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


41 


And Max, who was usually the talker, listened as 
badly as the other told his stories. For all the time 
he was weighed down with the fear, so strong that 
it seemed to amount to absolute knowledge, of 
some horrible danger hanging over his friend. 

Abruptly, before he made the expected comment 
on the last of Dudley s stories, Max rose from his 
chair and said he must go home. 

“ I 41 see you as far as your diggings first,” said 
he. It ’s not much out of way, you know.” 

At these words Dudley’s high spirits suddenly left 
him, and the furtive look came again “into his face. 

“ Oh,” said he, “ oh, very well. And on the way 
I can tell you the whole story of the accident that 
I saw at Charing Cross, this evening, just before I 
met you.” 

So they went out together, and Dudley, as he had 
suggested, gave his friend a long and extremely 
circumstantial account of the way in which the 
wheel went over the woman, and of the difficulty 
he and the policeman had experienced in getting 
her from between the wheels of the van by which 
she had been crushed. 

Max heard him in silence, but did not believe a 
word. Whatever had reduced Dudley to the plight 
in which he had returned to his chambers. Max 
WHS convinced that it differed in some important 


42 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


details from the version of the affair which he 
chose to give. 

“ We won’t talk any more about Jit,” he went on, 
without seeming to remark his friend’s silence. 
“ It ’s a thing I want to forget. It has quite upset 
me for a time ; you could see that yourself when 
you met me. I — I don’t know quite what to do to 
get the thing out of my mind. I think I shall run 
down to Datton with you, and see what that will 
do. What do you think ?” 

Now, although he had drunk more wine than 
usual, Dudley knew perfectly well what he was 
saying, and Max stared at him in astonishment. 

“ What !” he exclaimed. “ After what you told 
me ! About my father !” 

“ Oh, yes, yes. But I can explain everything. I 
canj and I will,” returned Dudley, quickly. “ I 
have not been myself lately. I have had certain 
business worries. But they are all settled now, and 
I feel more like m57self than I have done for weeks.” 

Max stopped short and stared at his friend by the 
light of a gas-lamp. 

“ Well, you don’t look it,” said he, shortly. 

Dudley laughed loudly, but rather uneasily. 

“ Don’t you think I could give an explanation 
which would satisfy your father, if I wished ?” he 
asked, with a sudden relapse into gravity. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


43 


“ I ’m hanged if I know,” retorted Max, ener- 
getically. “You haven’t given any explanation 
which would satisfy me." 

Dudley stared into his face for a few seconds in- 
quiringly, and then quietly hooked his arm and led 
him along the Strand. 

“You don’t want to be satisfied, old chap,” said 
he, in a low voice. “ You know me.” 

Again Max was deeply touched. This was a sud- 
den and unexpected peep under the surface of de- 
ception into the real heart of his old chum. He re- 
plied only by a slight twitching of the arm Dudley 
had taken. 

They walked on at a quicker pace, and ran up the 
stairs to the door of Dudley’s rooms in silence. 

Dudley went first into the sitting-room and turned 
up the gas. It did not escape Max that he shot a 
hurried glance around the room, taking in every 
corner, as he entered. Talking all the time about 
the cold and the fog, Dudley went into the adjoin- 
ing room, and Max saw him pull aside the bed- 
curtains and look behind them. 

Then Max, not wishing to play the spy on his 
friend, turned his back ; and as he did so he caught 
sight of the railway ticket which had fallen to the 
floor from Dudley’s pocket before they went out. 

Max picked it up, and noted that it was the return 


44 


The Wharf by the Docks: 


half of a first-class return ticket from Fenchurch 
Street to Limehouse, and that it was dated that very 
day. 

He had scarcely noted this, mechanically rather 
than with any set purpose, when he was startled to 
find Dudley at his elbow. 

Max turned round quickly, but Dudley’s eyes 
were fixed upon the railway ticket. 

“ You dropped this when you — ” began Max, 
handing it to his friend. 

It was not until then, when Dudley took the 
ticket from him and tossed it into the fireplace with 
a careless nod, that it flashed into the mind of Max 
that the incident had some significance. 

What on earth had Dudley been doing at Lime- 
house ? His parents had had property there, cer- 
tainly, many years ago. But not a square foot of 
the grimy, slimy, auriferous Thames-side land, not 
a brick or a beam of the warehouses and sheds 
which had been theirs in the old days, had descended 
to Dudley. Owing to the fraudulent action of Ed- 
ward Jacobs, all had had to go. 


45 


The^ Wharf by the Docks. 



CHAPTER IV. 


A PARAGRAPH IN THE STANDARD.” 

Max did not stay long with his friend, but made 
the excuse that he was half asleep, after a few min- 
utes’ rather desultory conversation, to go back to 
his hotel. ' . / 

It was with the greatest reluctance that he left his 
friend alone; but Dudley had given him intima-^^ 
tions, in every look and tone and movement, that 
he wished to be by himself ; and this fact increased 
the heaviness of heart with which Max, full of fore- 
bodings on his friend’s account, had gone reluctantly 
down the creaking stairs. 

Again and again Max asked himself, during his 
short walk from Lincoln’s Inn to Arundel Street, 
why he had ^ot had the courage to put a question 
or two straightforwardly to Dudley. As a flatter 
of fact, however{jthe reason was simple en^gh. 
The relative positions of the two men had beemsud- 
denly reversed, and neither of them, as yet, felt easy 
under the new conditions. « 


46 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


Dudley, the hard-working student, the rising bar- 
rister, the abstemious, thoughtful, rather silent man 
to whom Max had looked up with respect and affec- 
tion, had suddenly sunk, during the last few hours, 
by some unaccountable and mysterious means, to 
far below Max’s own modest level. It was he, the 
careless fellow whom Dudley had formerly admon- 
ished, who had that evening been the sober, the 
temperate, the taciturn one ; it was he who had 
watched the other, been solicitous for him, trembled 
for him. 

Max could not understand. He lay awake worry- 
ing himself about his friend, feeling Dudley’s fall 
^more acutely than he would have felt his own, and 
did not fall asleep until it was nearly daylight. 

In these circumstances he overslept himself, and 
it was eleven o’clock before he found himself in the 
hotel coffee-room, waiting for his breakfast. 

He was in the act of pouring out his coffee, when 
his name, uttered behind him in a familiar voice, 
made him start. The next moment Dudley Horne 
stood by his side, and holding out his hand with a 
smile^ seated himself on the chair bcvside him. 

“ I — I — I overslept myself this morning,” stam- 
mejiid Max. 

He was in a state of absolute bewilderment. Not 
only had the new Dudley of the previous night dis- 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


47 


appeared, with his alternate depression and fever- 
ish high spirits, his furtive glances, his hoarse and 
altered voice, but the old Dudley, who had re- 
turned, seemed happier and livelier than usual. 

“ Town and its wicked ways don’t agree with you, 
my boy, nor do they with me. If I were in your 
shoes, I shouldn’t tread the streets of Babylon more 
than once a twelvemonth.” 

“ You think that now,” returned Max, “ because 
you see more than enough of town.” 

“ Well, I ’m not going to see much more of it at 
present,” retorted Dudley. “ This afternoon I ’m 
off again down to Datton, and I came to ask whether 
you were coming down with me.” 

“ I thought you had had a row, at least a misun- 
derstanding of some sort, with — with my father?” 

“ Why, yes, so I had,” replied Dudley, serenely, 
as he took a newspaper out of his pocket and folded 
it for reading. But I ’ve written to him already 
this morning, explaining things, and telling him 
that I propose to come down to The Beeches this 
evening. He ’ll get it before T turn up, I should 
think, for I posted it at six o’clock this morning.” 

“ Why, what were you doing at six o’clock in the 
morning?” said Max, in a tone of bewilderment, as 
before. “ Didn’t you go to bed at all last night ?” 

No,” answered Dudley, calmly. “ I had. some 


48 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


worrying things to think about, and so I took the 
night to do it in.” 

A slight frown passed over his face as he spoke, 
but it disappeared quickly, leaving him as placid 
as before. 

“ About one of the things I can consult you, Max. 
You know something about it, I suppose. Do you 
think I have any chance with Doreen ?” 

Max stared at him again. 

“ You must be blind if you haven’t seen that you 
have,” he said, at last, in a sort of muffled voice, 
grudgingly. He moved uneasily in his seat, and 
added, in a hurried manner : “ But, I say, you know, 
Dudley, after last night, I — I want to ask you some- 
thing myself. I ’m Doreen’s brother, though I ’m 
not much of a brother for such a nice girl as she is. 
And — and — what on earth did you think of going 
to Liverpool for with a woman f I ’ve a right to 
ask that now, haven’t I ?” • : 

Max blurted out these words in a dogged tone, 
not deterred from finishing his sentence by the fact 
that Dudley’s face had grown white and hard, and 
that over his whole attitude there had come a rapid 
change. 

There was a pause when the younger man had 
finished. Dudley kept his eyes down, and traced 
a pattern on the table-cloth with a fork, while Max 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


49 


looked at him furtively. At last Dudley looked up 
quickly and asked, in a tone which admitted of no 
prevarication in the answer he demanded : 

“ You have been playing the spy upon me, I see. 
Tell me just how much you saw.” 

It was such a straightforward way of coming to 
the point that Max, taken aback, but rather thank- 
ful that the ground was to be cleared a little, 
answered at once without reserve : 

“ I did play the spy. It was enough to make me. 
I saw the. hansom waiting outside your door last 
night ; the cabman mistook me for you, and told 
me the lady had walked away. I couldn’t help put- 
ting that together with what you had told me about 
seeing a friend off to Liverpool, and, perhaps, going 
there yourself. Now, who could have helped it?” 

Dudley did not at once answer. He just glanced 
inquiringly at the face of Max while he went on 
tracing the pattern on the cloth. 

“ You didn’t see the lady,” he said at last, not in 
a questioning tone, but with conviction. 

“ No.” 

“ Well, if you had seen her you would have been 
satisfied that it was not her charms which were 
leading me astray,” said he, with a faint smile. 
“ Are you satisfied now, or do you still consider,” 
he went on with a slight tone of mockery in his 


50 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


voice, “ that my character requires further investi- 
gation before you can accept me for a bother-in- 
law ?” 

Max moved uneasily again. 

What rot, Horne !” said he, impatiently. “You 
know very well I ’ve always wanted you to marry 
Doreen. I ’ve said so, lots of times. I still say it 
was natural I should want to understand your queer 
goings-on last night. And now — and now — ” 

“ And now that you don’t understand them any 
better than before, you are ready to take it for 
granted it ’s all right ?” broke in Dudley, with the 
same scoffing tone as before. 

Max grew very red, began to speak, glanced at 
Dudley, and got up. 

“ Yes, I suppose that ’s about the size of it,” said 
he, stiffly. 

“ And are you going down with me to-night ? I 
can catch the seven o’clock train.” 

“ Oh, yes, I suppose so. I ’ll meet you at Charing 
Cross.” 

Max’s enthusiasm on his friend’s behalf had been 
much damped by his behavior, and he gave him a 
nod, turned on his heel and left him without another 
word. He gave up trying to understand the mys- 
tery which hung about Dudley, and left it to Doreen 
and to his father to unravbl. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


51 


The two young men did not meet again, therefore, 
until seven ^hat evening, when they took their seats 
in the same smoking-carriage. Max felt quite glad 
that the presence of a couple of strangers prevented 
any talk of a confidential sort between himself and 
Dudley, who on his side seemed perfectly contented 
to puff at his pipe in silence. 

Dudley’s letter had evidently been received, and 
well received, for at the station the . two friends 
found the dog-cart waiting to take them the mile 
and a half which lay between the station and The 
Beeches. 

At the house itself, too, the front door flew open 
at their approach, and Mr. Wedmore himself stood 
in the hall to welcome them. 

Queenie was there. Mr. Wedmore was there. 
But there was never a glimpse of Doreen. 

“ I got your letter, my dear boy,” began Mr. Wed- 
more, holding out his hand with so much heartiness 
that it was plain he was delighted to be able to for- 
give his old friend’s son, “ and I am very glad, in- 
deed, that you have found your way back to us so 
soon. I am heartily glad to hear that the worries 
which have been making you depressed lately are 
over — heartily glad. And so, I am sure,” added he, 
with a significant smile, “ Doreen will be.” 

“ Thank you, sir,” said Dudley. “You are very 


52 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


kind, very indulgent. I am not ungrateful, I assure 
you.” 

Max, behind them, was listening with attentive 
ears. He did not feel so sure as his father seemed 
to be that all was now well with Dudley. 

“ Where’s Doreen ?” he asked his younger sister. 

“ Don’t know. I’m sure. She ’s taken herself off 
somewhere. Probably somebody else will find her 
quicker than you will.” 

The younger sister was right. The younger sis- 
ter always is on these occasions. 

Within five minutes of his arrival, Dudley found 
his way into the breakfast room, where Doreen, a 
pug dog and a raven were sitting together on the 
floor, surrounded by a frightful litter of paper and 
shavings and string, wooden boxes, hampers, and 
odds and ends of cotton wool. 

She just looked up when Dudley came in, gave 
him a glance and a little cool nod, and then, as he 
attempted to advance, uttered a shrill little scream. 

“ One step farther, and my wax cupids will be 
ruined !” 

“ Wax cupids !” repeated Dudley, feebly. 

“ Yes, for my Christmas tree. It’s to be the 
greatest success ever known in these parts, or the 
greatest failure. Nothing between. That’s what 
I must always have — something sensational — some- 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


S3 


thing to make people howl at me, or to make them 
want to light bonfires in my honor. That’s char- 
acteristic, isn’t it?” 

And Doreen, who was dressed in a black skirt, 
with a scarlet velvet bodice which did justice to her 
brilliant complexion and soft, dark hair, paused in 
the act of turning out a number of glittering glass 
balls into her lap. 

“ Very,” said Dudley, as he made his way carefully 
to the nearest chair and sht down to look at her. 

He was up to his knees in brown-paper parcels, 
over which barricade he stretched out his hand. 

Doreen affected not to see it. She began to tie 
bits of farM^ string into the little rings in the glass 
balls, cutting off the ends with a pair of scissors. 

“ Aren’t you going to shake hands with me ?” 
asked Dudley, impatiently. 

Doreen answered without looking up. 

“ No. Not yet.” 

“ What ’s the matter now ?” 

“ Oh, I am offended.” 

‘‘ What have I done now?” 

Doreen threw up her head. 

“ What have you not done? We have all of us — 
I among the others — had a good deal to put up with 
from you, lately, in the matter of what I will call 
general neglect. And you put a climax to it the 


S4 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


day before yesterday by rushing out of the house 
without a word of good-bye to anybody.” 

“There was a reason for it,” interrupted Dudley, 
quickly. 

“ I suppose so. But I ’m not going to take the 
reason on trust, Mr. Horne.” 

“ Not if you ’re satisfied that you will meet with 
no more neglect in the future ? That my conduct 
shall be in every respect what you — and ^the others 
— can desire ?” 

“ Not even then,” replied Doreen decisively. 

“ But if your father is satisfied ?” 

' Then go and talk to my father.” 

There was a pause and their eyes m#. Dudley, 
who had acknowledged to himself the patience with 
which Doreen had put up with his recent neglect, 
was astonished by the resolution which he saw in 
her eyes. 

“ What is it you want to know ?” he asked, in a 
condescending and indulgent fone. 

■“ A great deal more than you will tell me,” an- 
swered Doreen, promptly. 

Whereat there was another pause. Dudley took 
up one of the brown-paper parcels and turned it 
over in his hands. Perhaps it was to hide the fact 
that an irrepressible tremor was running through 
his limbs. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


55 


If he had looked at her at that moment he would 
have seen in her eyes a touching look of sympathy 
and distress. The girl knew that something had 
been amiss with him — that something was amiss 
still. She cared for him. She wanted his confi- 
dence, or at least so much of it as would allow her 
to pour out upon him the tender sympathy with 
which her innocent heart was overflowing. And 
he would have none of it. He wanted to treat her 
like a beautiful doll, to be left in its cotton wool 
when his spirits were too low for playthings, and to 
be taken out and admired when things went better 
with him. 

This was what Doreen mutinously thought and 
what her lips were on the point of uttering, when 
the door was opened by Mr. Wedmore, who came 
into the room with a copy of the Evening Standard 
in his hand. 

“ Look here, Horne, did you see this ?” said he, 
as he folded the paper and handed it to Dudley. 
“ Here ’s an odd thing. Of course it may be only a 
coincidence. But doesn’t it seem to refer to the 
rascal who ruined your prospects — Edward Jacobs ?’* 

“ A middle-aged Jewish woman, who found some difficulty in 
making herself understood, from an impediment in her speech, 

applied to Mr. , of Street Police Court, for advice in the 

following circumstances : She and her husband had returned to 
England in reduced circumstances, after a long residence abroad, 


5 ^ 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


and her husband was in search of employment. He had re- 
ceived a letter from Limehouse, offering him employment and 
giving him an appointment for yesterday afternoon, which he 
started to keep. He had not returned ; she had been to Lime- 
house police station to make inquiries, but could learn nothing 
of her husband. She seemed to be under the impression that he 
had met with foul play, and made a rambling statement to the 
effect that he had * enemies.’ It was only after much persuasion, 
and the assurance that the press could not help her without the 
knowledge, that she gave her name as Jacobs, and her husband’s 
first name as Edward. She described him as of the middle 
height, thin, with gray hair and a short gray beard. The magis- 
trate said he had no doubt the press would do what they could 
to help her, and the woman withdrew.” 

Dudley Horne read this account, and gave the 
paper back to Mr. Wedmore. 

He tried to speak^s he did so, but, though his 
mouth opened, the voice refused to come. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


57 


CHAPTER V. 

ONE man’s loss is ANOTHER MAN’S GAIN. 

'‘Confound the Christmas tree!” grumbled Mr. 
Wedmore, as he stumbled over a parcel of fluffy 
rabbits, whose heads screwed off to permit the in- 
sertion of sweets. 

“ Oh, papa, you ’ll be saying ‘ Confound Christ- 
mas ’ next !” 

And Doreen, with one watchful eye on Dudley 
all the time, made a lane through her boxes and 
her hampers to admit the passage of her father to 
a chair. 

By this time Dudley had recovered himself a lit- 
tle, and was able to answer the question Mr. Wed- 
more now put to him. 

" What do you think of that, Horne ?” 

“ I think, sir, that it must be more than a coin- 
cidence ; that Mrs. Jacobs must be the wife of the 
man who was my father’s manager.” 

“ Well, I think so, too. I know Jacobs’s wife had 
an impediment in her speech. The odd part of the 
business is that he should have disappeared at 


58 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


Limehouse, the very place where one would have 
thought he would have an objection to turning up 
at all, connected as it was with his old peculations. 
I suppose he thought they were forgotten by this 
time.” 

“ I suppose so.” 

Dudley still looked very white. He took up the 
paper again, as if to re-read the paragraph. But 
Doreen, from her post of vantage on the floor, saw 
that he held it before him with eyes fixed. Mr. 
Wedmore, after a little hesitation, and after vainly 
trying to get another look at the face of the younger 
man, went on again : 

“ I thought you would be struck by this ; the sub- 
ject turning up again in this odd way, ju.st when 
you Ve been interesting yourself so much in the 
old story !” 

Down went the paper, and Dudley looked into the 
face of Mr. Wedmore. 

“ Interesting myself in it ! Have I ? How do 
you mean ?” 

“ Well, you ’ve asked a good many questions 
about this Jacobs, and wondered what had become 
of him. I fancy you have the answer in that para- 
graph.” 

There was a pause, and Dudley seemed to recol- 
lect something. Then he said : 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


“ Oh, yes, I think I have. The man has fallen 
upon bad times, evidently. I— I— I ’m sorry for his 
wife.” 

“ And the man himself — haven’t you forgiven 
him yet ?” 

Dudley started, and glanced quickly round, as if 
the simple words had been an accusation. 

“ Forgiven him ? Oh, yes, long ago. At least — ” 
He paused ‘a moment, and then added, inquiringly: 
“ What had I to forgive ?” 

“ Well, to tell the truth, Horne, that’s just what 
I have often asked myself, when you have insisted 
upon raking up all the details of poor Jacobs’s 
misdeeds ! Why, your poor father, who was ruined 
by his dishonesty, never showed half the animosity 
you do. I could have understood it if you had suf- 
fered by his frauds. But have you ? You have 
been well educated ; you have started well in life. 
And on the whole, no man who has arrived at your 
age can honestly say that it would have been better 
for him to start life with a fortune at his back, eh ?” 

“ No.” 

Dudley got up from his chair. He seemed agi- 
tated and uneasy, and soon took advantage of Mr. 
Wedmore’s suggestion, somewhat dryly made, that 
he was tired after his journey and would like to go 
to bedt 


6o 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


When he had left the room, Mr. Wedmore turned 
angrily to his daughter. 

“ Now, Doreen, I will have no more of this non- 
sense. Dudley is beginning all the old tricks over 
again — absence of mind, indifference to you — did 
he even look at you as he said good night ? — and 
morbid interest in this old, forgotten business of 
Jacobs and his misdoings. I won’t have any more 
of it, and I shall 'tell him plainly that we don’t care 
to have him down here until he can bring a livelier 
face and manner with him !” 

Doreen had risen from her humble seat on the 
floor and had crawled on her knees to the side of 
his chair, where she slid a coaxing, caressing hand 
under his arm and put her pretty head gently down 
on his shoulder. ^ 

No, you won’t, papa dear. You won’t do any- 
thing of the kind,” she whispered in his ear very 
softly, very humbly. You would not do anything 
to give pain to your old friend’s son if you could 
help it, and you would not do anything to hurt your 
own child, your little Doreen, for a hundred thou- 
sand pounds, now would you ?” 

“ Yes, I would, if it was for her good,” replied Mr. 
Wedmore, in a very loud and determined voice, 
which was supposed to have the effect of frighten- 
ing her into submission. “And it’s all rubbish 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


6i 


to think to get around me by calling yourself ‘ little 
Doreen,’ when you ’re a great, big, overgrown lamp- 
post of a girl, who can take her own part against 
the whole county.” 

Doreen laughed, but still clung persistently to 
the arm which he pretended to try to release from 
her clutches. 

“'Well, I don’t know about the county, but I think 
I can persuade my old father into doing what I 
want,” she purred into his ear with gentle conviction. 
“You see, papa, it isn’t as if Dudley and I were en- 
gaged. We — ” 

“ Why, what else have you been but engaged 
ever since last Christmas?” said her father, irri- 
tably. “ Everybody has looked upon it as an engage- 
ment, and Dudley was devoted enough until a 
couple of months ago ; but now something has gone 
wrong with the lad. I’m certain, and it would be 
much better for you both to make an end of this.” 

“ Why, there ’s nothing to make an end of,” 
pleaded Doreen. “Just ‘let things slide,’ as Max 
says, and let Dudley come down or stay away as he 
likes, and the matter will come (Jliite right one way 
or the other, and you will find there was really 
nothing for you to trouble your dear old head about, 
after all.” 

There was really some excellence in the girl’s 


O 


62 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


suggestion ; and her father, after much grumbling, 
gave a half consent to it. He was forced to admit 
to himself that there was some grounds for Dudley’s 
agitation on reading the paragraph concerning the 
disappearance of Edward Jacobs, since he had been 
interesting himself of late in that person’s history. 
But it was the degree of the young man’s agitation 
which had seemed morbid. Mr. Wedmore found it 
difficult to understand why a mere suggestion of 
the man’s disappearance — if it were indeed thevadccL 
— should affect Dudley so deeply. And the idea of 
incipient insanity in young Horne grew stronger 
than ever in Mr. Wedmore’s mind. 

Now, Doreen was by no means so sanguine as she 
pretended to be. She was one of those high-spirited, 
lively girls who find it easy to hide from others any 
troubles which may be gnawing at their heart. Such 
a nature has an elasticity which enables it to throw 
off its cares for a time, when in the society of 
others, only to brood over them in hours of lone- 
liness. 

Nobody in the house knew — what, however, 
shrewd Queenie half guessed — that Doreen had 
many an anxious hour, many a secret fit of crying, 
on account of the change in Dudley’s manner to- 
ward her. The brilliant, proud-hearted girl was 
more deeply attached to him than anybody sus- 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


63 


pected. If any remark was made by outsiders as to 
the comparative rarity of the young barrister’s 
visits during the past two months, it was always 
accompanied by the comment that Miss Wedmore 
would not be long in consoling herself. 

And everybody knew that the curate, the Rev. 
Lisle Lindsay, was hungering to step into Dudley’s 
shoes. 

He was not quite to be despised as a rival, this 
snowy-banded, dilettant, delicate-handed priest.” 
In the first place, he was a really nice, honorable 
young fellow, with no much worse faults than a 
pedantically correct pronounciation of the unac- 
cented vowels ; in the second place, he was con- 
siderably taller than the race of curates usually 
runs ; and in the third place, he had a handsome 
allowance from his mother, and “ expectations ” on 
a very grand scale indeed. Miss Wedmore, if she 
were to decide in his favor, might well aspire to be 
the wife of a bishop some day. And what could 
woman wish for more ? 

He was no laggard in love either. On the very 
morning after the arrival of Max and Dudley, Mr. 
Lindsay called soon after breakfast to make in- 
quiries about the amount of holly and evergreens 
which would be available for the decoration of the 
church, and was shown into the morning-room, 


64 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


where most of the great work of preparation for 
Christmas was taking place. 

Mrs. Wedmore and all the young people were 
there, Max and Dudley having been pressed into 
the service of filling cardboard drums with sweets 
for what Max called “ the everlasting tree.” The 
tree itself stood in a corner Qf the room, a colossal 
but lop-sided plant with a lamentable tendency to 
straggle about the lower branches, and an inclination 
to run to weedy and unnecessary length about the top. 

Max was a hopeless failure as an assistant. He 
was always possessed with a passionate desire to do 
something different from what he was asked to do 
and when they gave way* and indulged his fancy, 
the fancy disappeared, and he found that he wanted 
to do something else. 

“ It ’s always the way with a man !” was Queenie’s 
scornful comment on her brother’s failing. 

Queenie herself looked upon the whole business 
of the tree as a piece of useless frivolity unworthy 
the time and attention of grown-up people. And 
she went about the share in it which she had been 
persuaded to undertake with a stolid and super- 
cilious manner which went far to spoil the enjoy- 
ment of the rest. 

Dudley entered into the affair with some zest, 
but it was noticeable that he devoted himself to 


LOOK HERE, HORNE I piD YOU SEE THIS V'—See Page 55 




66 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


She went quickly out into the large hall, and the 
curate followed with alacrity. Max and his mother 
were engaged in a wrangle over some soup and coal 
tickets which somebody had -mislaid, and in the 
search for which the whole room, with its parcels 
and bundles, had to be overturned. 

Queenie, who was at work at the end of the room, 
near the window, uttered- a short laugh. Dudley, 
who was standing a little way off, drew nearer, and 
asked what she was laughing at. 

“ Oh, that misguided youth who has just gone 
out !” 

“ Misguided ?” 

“ Yes," said Queenie, shortly. “ If he hadn’t 
been misguided, he would have devoted his atten- 
tion to me, not to Doreen. By all the laws of 
society, curates’ wives should be plain. They 
should also be simple in their dress, and devoted to 
good works. Doreen says so herself. Why, then, 
didn’t he see that I was the wife for him and not 
the beauty ?’’ 

“ Don’t you think she will have him, then ?’’ 
asked Dudley, very stiffly, after a short pause. 
“ She seems to like him. There was no need, surely, 
for her to have been in such a hurry to take him 
into the grounds, if she had felt no particular pleas- 
ure in his society." 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


67 


Queenie looked up rather slyly out of her little 
light eyes. She was distressed on account of her 
sister’s trouble about this apparently vacillating 
lover, and irritated herself by his strange conduct. 
But at the bottom of her heart she believed in him 
and in his affection for Doreen, just as her sister 
herself did, and she would have given the world to 
make things right between two people whom she 
chose to believe intended by nature for each other. 

“ I think there are other people in the world 
whose society Doreen likes better,” she said at 
last, below her breath. 

The wrangle at the other end of the room was 
still going on, and nobody heard her but Dudley. 
He flushed slightly and looked as if he understood. 
But he instantly turned the talk to another subject. 

“ Would you have liked that sleek curate your- 
self, really ?” 

“Sleek? What do you mean by sleek? You 
wouldn’t have a minister of the church go about 
with long hair and a velveteen coat and a pipe in 
his mouth, would you ?” 

“ Not for worlds, I assure you. He is a most 
beautiful creature, and I admire him very much, 
though he is perhaps hardly the sort of man I 
should have expected both you girls to rave about. 
And as for you, I thought you were too good to rave 


68 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


about anybody ! You are unlike yourself this 
morning, and more like Doreen.” 

Queenie laughed again that satirical little laugh 
which made a man wonder what her thoughts ex- 
actly were. 

“ You say that because you don’t know anything 
about me. I don’t talk when Doreen is talking, be- 
cause then nobody would listen to me. I could 
talk, too, if anybody ever talked to me.” 

“ But one sees so little of you,” pleaded Dudley. 
‘‘You are generally out district-visiting, or busy for 
Mrs. Wedmore, so that one hasn’t a chance of 
knowing you well. And one has got an idea that 
you are too good to waste your time in idle con- 
versation with a mere man !” 

“ Good !” cried Queenie contemptuously. “ There ’s 
nothing good about my district-visiting. I like it, 
Doreen goes about telling people it is good of me. 
But that’s only because she wouldn’t care about it 
herself. I like fussing about and thinking I am 
making myself useful. It ’s like mamma’s knitting, 
which gets her the reputation of being very indus- 
trious, while all the time she enjoys it very much.” 

“But yoii yourself said you were ‘devoted to 
good works.’ I quote your very words.” 

“ That was only in fun. It ’s what Doreen says 
of me. You must have heard her. She is much 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


69 


better than I am — really much more unselfish — 
much more amiable. Only because she 's always 
bright and full of fun, she doesn’t get the credit of 
any of her good qualities. People think she ’s only 
indulging her own inclination when wshe keeps us 
all amused and happy all day long. But they don’t 
know that she can suffer just as much as anybody 
else, and that it costs her an effort to be lively for 
our sakes when she feels miserable.” 

Qneenie spoke with a little feeling in her usually 
hard, dry voice. Dudley was silent for a long time 
when she had finished speaking. At last they 
looked up at the same moment and mef each other’s 
eyes. And the reserved, harassed man felt his 
heart go out to the girl, with her quiet shrewdness 
and undemonstrative affection for her brilliant 
sister. 

“ Your quiet eyes see 'a great deal more than one 
would think, Queenie,” he said at last. “ I sup- 
pose they have seen that there is something — some- 
thing wrong — with — ” 

He spoke very slowly, and finally he stopped with- 
out finishing the sentence. 

Queenie gravely took it up for him. 

“ Something wrong with you ? Of course I have. 
Well ?” 

“ I don’t know why I am telling you this. I didn’t 


70 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


mean to tell any one. But — but — well, I ’ve begun ; 
I may as well finish. You ’re not a person who 
would talk about anybody else’s secrets more than 
about your own.” 

“ A secret ? Are you going to tell me a secret ?” 

Dudley smiled very faintly, and then his expres- 
sion suddenly changed. Something like a spasm 
of fear and of pain shot quickly across his face, 
frightening her a little. Then he shook his 
head. 

. “ No,” said he. “ I hardly think you will consider 
it a secret, after what you have just told me. I am 
only going to tell you this : I have had a great 
trouble, a great affliction, hanging over me for some 
time now. Sometimes I have thought it was going 
to clear away and leave me as I was before. Some- 
times I have felt myself quite free from it, and able 
to go on in the old way. But with this conscious- 
ness, this knowledge hanging over me always, I 
have behaved in all sorts of strange ways, have 
hurt the feelings of my friends, have not been my- 
self at all. You know that, Queenie.” 

Queenie slowly bowed her head. Mrs. Wedmore 
and Max, still occupied in their search for the miss- 
ing soup tickets, had now extended their operations 
to the hall, and left* the room in possession of the 
other two. Dudley went on with his confession. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 




“ And now something has happened which has 
cut me off from my old self, as it were. I don’t 
know how else to express what I mean. I came 
down last night with the intention of speaking to — 
to Doreen for the last time, of trying to explain 
myself, if not to — to justify myself to her. You 
know what I mean, don’t you ?” 

Again Queenie bowed her head. Her father’s 
suspicions as to Dudley’s perfect sanity had, of 
course, reached her ears, and she felt so much pity 
for the poor fellow whose confession she was then 
hearing that she dared not even raise her eyes to 
his face aga;n. He went on, hurrying his words, as 
if anxious to get his confession over : 

“ But I thought it all over last night, and I de- 
cided to say nothing to her, after all. I don’t think 
I could, without making a fool of myself. For you 
know — you know my feelings about her ; everybody 
knows. I had hoped — Oh, well, you know what 
I hoped — ” 

There was a pause. Dudley was afraid of break- 
ing down. 

“ Oh, Dudley, is it really all over, then, between 
you ? Oh, it is dreadful ! For, you know, she cares, 
too !” 

Not as I do. I hope and think that is impossi- 
ble,” said Dudley, hoarsely. 


72 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


There was another pause, a longer one. Then 
Queenie gave utterance to a little sob. Dudley, 
who was sitting on the table at which she was at 
work, got upon his feet with an impatient move- 
ment. His dark face looked hard and angry. As 
he paced once or twice up and down the small space 
available in the disordered room, the inward fight 
which was going on between his passion and his 
sense of right convulsed his face, and Queenie 
shuddered as, glancing at him, she fancied she 
could see in the glare of his black eyes the haunt- 
ing madness at which he seemed so plainly to have 
hinted. 

She rose in her turn. 

“ But, Dudley — ” she began. 

And then, unable to express what she felt, what 
she thought, any better than he had done, she 
turned abruptly away and sat down again. 

There was silence for a few moments, and then 
she heard the door close. Looking round, she saw 
that he had left the room. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


73 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE LITTLE STONE PASSAGE. 

Queenie kept Dudley’s half-confessed secret to 
herself for the whole of that day. She was hoping 
against hope that he would change his mind again 
and speak to Doreen himself. Since there must be 
a definite and final breach, she thought it would be 
better for the principals themselves to come to an 
understanding, without the intervention of out- 
siders. She would have told him so, but she got 
no further opportunity of speaking to him alone. 

The day passed uncomfortably for everybody, 
although the only person who gave vent to his feel- 
ings by open ill-temper was Mr. Wedmore, who was 
waiting for the promised explanation which Dud- 
ley never attempted to give. And before dinner- 
time that evening the young barrister returned to 
town. 

Mr. Wedmore, who had been out shooting with ' 
Doctor Haselden, was furious, on returning home, ' 
to learn of Dudley’s departure. 


74 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


He has left a note for you, papa, in the' study,” 
said Doreen, who was, perhaps, a little paler than 
usual, but who gave no other outward sign of her 
feelings. 

Her father went into the study, after a glance at 
his daughter, and read the letter. It was^not a very 
long one. Following the lines of his guarded con- 
fession to Queenie, Dudley expressed the sorrow he 
felt at having to give up the hopes he had had of 
being something more than the mere old friend he 
had been for so many years. He had thought it 
better, at the last, to say this on paper instead of 
by word of mouth, and he ended by expressing the 
deep gratitude he should always feel for the kind- 
ness shown to him by Mr. Wedmore and all his 
family during the happiest period of his life. 

Mr. Wedmore read this letter with little astonish- 
ment. It was, in fact, what he had been prepared 
to hear. He read it to his wife, who cried a great 
deal, but acquiesced in her husband’s desire that 
Dudley should drop not only out of the ranks of 
their intimate friends, but even, as much as possi- 
ble, out of their conversation. 

Let us do our best,” said he, “ to make Doreen 
forget him.” 

Mr. Wedmore showed the letter also to Doctor 
Haselden, who, perhaps, from pure love of contra- 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


75 


diction, persisted in maintaining that the letter 
confessed nothing, and that the cause of the young 
man’s withdrawal was,* in all probability, quite dif- 
ferent from what Mr. Wedmore supposed. The 
two gentlemen had quite a wrangle over the mat- 
ter, at the end of which each was settled more 
firmly in his own opinion than before. 

When they went upstairs f»r the night, Doreen 
came to Queenie’s room and demanded to know 
what her younger sister and Dudley had been talk- 
ing about so earnestly in the breakfast-room that 
morning. 

“ What do you mean by talking earnestly ?” said 
Queenie, in the calm, dry manner which would have 
made any one but her sister think she was really 
surprised. 

“ Max told me,” said Doreen, “ and I mean to stay 
here until I know.” 

It needed very little reflection to tell Queenie 
that it was better for her sister to hear the truth at 
once. So she told her. 

Doreen listened very quietly, and then got up 
and wished her sister good night. 

“Well,” said Queenie, “you take it very quietly. 
What do you think about it ?” 

“ I ’ll tell you — when I know myself,” answered 
Doreen, briefly, as she left the room. The first re- 


76 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


suit oft he talks, however, was a conversation, not 
with Queenie, but with her brother, Max. Doreen 
ran after him next morning ^s he was on his way 
to the stables and made him take a walk through 
the park with her instead of going for a ride. 

“ Max,” she said, coaxingly, when they had gone 
out of sight of the house, 570U have been my con- 
fidant about this unhappy affair of Dudley’s — ” 

But her brother interrupted her, and tried to 
draw away the arm she had taken. 

“ Look here, Doreen,” said he earnestly, “ you’d 
better not think any more about him— much better 
not. I do really think the poor fellow’s right in 
what he hinted to my father, and that he ’s going 
off his head ; or, rather, I know enough to be sure 
that he ’s not always perfectly sane. Surely you 
must see that, in the circumstances, the less you 
think about him the better.” 

“ There I disagree with you altogether,” said 
Doreen, firmly. “ Max, papa and mamma can’t 
understand ; they ’ve forgotten how they felt when 
they were first fond of each other. Queenie ’s not 
old enough, and she ’s too good besides. Now, you 
do know, you do understand what it is to be head 
over ears in love.” 

Good heavens, Doreen, don ’t talk like that ! 
You mustn’t, you know !” 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


77 


“ Don ’t talk nonsense/’ interrupted his sister, 
sharply. “ I tell you I love Dudley, and ever so 
much more since I ’ve found out he is in great 
trouble ; as any decent woman would do. Now I 
don’t feel nearly so sure as everybody else as to 
what his trouble is, but I want you to find out, and 
to help me if you can.” 

“What, play detective — spy? Not me. It’s 
ridiculous, unheard of. I’ve done it once on your 
account, and I never felt such a sneak in my life. 
I won’t do it again, even for you, and that’s flat.” 

And Max thrust his hands deep into his pockets. 

“ Won’t you ?” said Doreen, with a quiet smile. 
“ Then I must, and I will.” 

Her brother started and stared at her. 

“ You ! You ! What nonsense !” 

“It ’s not nonsense, as you will find when you hear 
me get permission to go up to town to stay with 
Aunt Betty.” 

Max grew sincerely alarmed. 

“ Look here, Doreen, be reasonable,” said he. 
“ You can do no good to Dudley, believe me. He 
has got into some dreadful mess or other ; but it’s 
nothing that you or I or any earthly creature can 
help him out of. I confess I didn’t tell you all I 
found out when I went up to town. I couldn’t. I 
can’t now. But if you will persist, and if nothing 


78 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


else will keep you quietly here, I — well, I promise 
to go up again. And I ’ll warrant if I do I shall learn 
something which will convince even you that you 
must give up every thought of him.” 

“ Will you promise,” said Doreen, solemnly, “ to 
tell me all you find out?” 

“ No,” replied Max, promptly, “ I won’t promise 
that. I can’t. But I think you can trust me to tell 
you as much as you ought to know.” 

With this promise Doreen was obliged to be con- ' 
tent. And when, at luncheon time, it was discov- 
ered that certain things were wanted from town, 
and Max offered to go up for them, Doreen and her 
brother exchanged a look from which she gathered 
that he would not forget her errand. 

Max had plenty of time, while he was being 
jolted from Datton to Cannon Street, to decide on 
the best means of carrying out his promise. He 
decided that a visit to Limehouse, to the neighbor- 
hood where the property of the late Mr. Horne had 
been situated, would be better than another visit to 
Dudley. 

Plumtree Wharf was, he knew, the name of the 
most important part of the property which had be- 
longed to Dudley’s father. Putting together the 
two facts of the discovery of a ticket for Limehouse 
in Dudley’s possession, and of the disappearance of 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


79 


Edward Jacobs after a visit to that locality on the 
same day, Max saw that there was something to be 
gleaned in that neighborhood, if he should have 
the luck to light upon it. 

It was late in the afternoon, and already dark, 
before he got out of the train at Limehouse station, 
and began the exploration of the unsavory district 
which fringes the docks. 

Through street after street of dingy, squalid 
houses he passed ; some broken up by dirty little 
shops, some presenting the dull uniformity of row 
after row of mean, stunted brick buildings, the 
broken windows of many of which were mended 
with brown paper, or else not mended at all. Here 
and there a grimy public house, each with its 
group of loafers about the doors, made, with the 
lights in its windows, a spot of comparative bright- 
ness. 

Many of the streets were narrow and tortuous, 
roughly paved, and both difficult and dangerous 
to traverse by the unaccustomed foot passenger, 
who found himself now slipping on a piece of 
orange peel, the pale color of which was disguised 
by mud, now risking the soundness of his ankles 
among the uneven and slimy stones of the road. 

Max had to ask his way more than once before he 
reached the Plumtree Wharf, the entrance to which 


8o 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


was through a door in a high wooden fence. Rather 
to ‘his surprise, he found the door unfastened and 
unguarded. And when he had got through he 
looked round and asked himself what on earth he 
had expected to find there. 

There was nothing going on at this late hour, and 
Max was able to take stock of the place and of the 
outlook generally. Piles of timber to the right of 
him, the dead wall at the side of a warehouse on 
the left, gave him but a narrow space in which 
to pursue his investigations. And these only 
amounted to the discovery that the troubled waters 
of the Thames looked very dark and very cold from 
this spot ; that the opposite bank, with little specks 
of light, offered a gloomy and depressing prospect, 
and that the lapping of the water among the black 
barges which were moored at his feet in a dense 
mass was the dreariest sound he had ever heard. 
He turned away with a shudder, and walked quickly 
up the narrow lane left by the timber, calling him- 
self a fool for his journey. 

And just as he was reaching the narrow street 
by which he had come he was startled to find a 
girhs face peering down at him from the top of a 
pile of timber. 

Max stopped, with an exclamation. In an in- 
^stant the girl withdrew the head, which was all he 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


8i 


had seen of her, and he heard her crawling back 
quickly over the timber, out of his sight. 

Although he had seen her for a moment only, 
Max had been chilled to the bone by the expres- 
sion of the girl’s face. Ghastly white it had looked 
in the feeble light of a solitary gas lamp some dis- 
tance away, and wearing an expression of fear and 
horror such as he had never seen on any counte- 
nance before. He felt that he must find out where 
she had gone, his first belief being that she was a 
lunatic. Else why should she have disappeared in 
that stealthy manner, with the look of fear stamped 
upon her face ? There was nothing in the look or 
manner of Max himself to alarm her ; and if she 
had been in need of help, why had she not called 
to him ? 

He got a footing upon the timber and looked 
over it. But he could see nothing more of the girl. 
Beyond the stacks were some low-roofed outbuild- 
ings and the back of a shut-up warehouse. Reluc- 
tantly he got down, and passed into the narrow 
street. Not willing to leave at once a neighbor- 
hood which he had come so far to investigate, he 
turned, after going some dozen yards down the 
street, into a narrow passage on his left hand which 
led back to the river. 

The width between the high walls and the ware- 


82 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


houses on either side was only some five feet. It 
was flagged with stone, very dark. About ten 
yards from the entrance there was a small ware- 
house, on the left hand, on which hung an old 
board, announcing that the building was “ To Let.” 
And next door to this was a dingy shop, with grimy 
and broken windows, the door of which was boarded 
up. This shop, also, was “ To Be Let,” and the 
board in this case had been up so long that the an- 
nouncement had to be divined rather than read. 

Rather struck by the dilapidated appearance of 
these two buildings in a place where he supposed 
land must be valuable. Max paused for an instant. 
And as he did so, he became aware that there was 
some one by his side. 

Looking down quickly, he saw the young girl of 
whom he had caught a glimpse a few minutes be- 
fore. 

He started. 

She looked up at him, and, still with the same 
look of stereotyped horror on her thin, white face, 
whispered, in a hoarse voice, as she pointed to the 
boarded-up shop-door with a shaking forefinger : 

“You daren’t go in there, do you? There ’s a 
dead man in there !” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


S3 


CHAPTER VIL 

A QUESTIONABLE GUIDE. 

Max started violently at the girl’s voice. 

“ A dead man ? In there ? How do you know ?” 

In a hoarse voice the girl answered : 

“ How do I know ? The best way possible. I 
saw it done /” 

There was an awful silence. Max was so deeply 
impressed by the girl’s words, her looks, her man- 
ner, by the gloom of the cold, dark passage, by the 
desolate appearance of the two deserted buildings 
before which they stood, that his first impulse was 
an overpowering desire to run away. Acting upon 
it he even took a couple of rapid steps in the direc- 
tion of the street he had left, passing the girl and 
getting clear of the uncanny boarded-up front of 
the shop. 

A moan from the girl made him stop and look 
around at her. Emboldened by this, she came close 
to him again and whispered : 


84 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


“ You’re a man ; you ought to have more pluck 
than I ’ve got. It ’s two days since it happened — ” 

“Two days !” muttered Max, remembering that 
it was two days ago that he had surprised Dudley 
with his blood-stained hands. 

“ And for those two days I ’ve been outside here 
waiting for somebody to come because I daren’t go 
inside by myself. Two days ! Two days !” she re- 
peated, her teeth chattering. 

Max looked at her with mixed feelings of doubt, 
pity and astonishment. It was too dark in the ill- 
lighted passage for him to see all the details of her 
appearance. She was young, quite young ; so much 
was certain. She looked white and pinched and 
miserably cold. Her dress was respectable, very 
plain, and bore marks of her climbing and crawling 
over the timber an the wharf. 

“ Won’t you go in with me ?” she asked again, 
more eagerly, more tremulously than before. “ I 
can show you the road — round at the back. You 
will have a little climbing to do, but you won’t mind 
that.” 

“ But what do you want me to do if I do get in- 
side ?” said Max. “ It ’s the police you ought to 
send for, if a man has died in there. Go to the 
police station and give information.” 

The girl shook her head. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


85 


“ I can’t do that,” she whispered. Then, after a 
shuddering pause, she came a step nearer and said, 
in a lower whisper than ever : “ He didn’t die — of 
his own accord. He was murdered.” 

Max grew hot and cold. He heartily wished he 
had never come. 

“ All the more reason,” he went on in a bluster- 
ing voice, “ why you should inform the police. You 
had better lose no time about it.” 

“ I can’t do that,” said the girl, “ because he — the 
man who did it — was kind to us — kind to Granny 
and me. If I tell the police, they will go after him, 
and perhaps find him, and — and hang him. Oh, 
no,” and she shook her head again with decision, 
“ I could not do that.” 

Max was silent for a few moments, looking at her 
for the first few seconds with pity and then with 
suspicion. 

“ Why do you tell all this to me, then — a stranger — 
if you ’re so afraid of the police finding out anything 
about it ?” 

The girl did not answer for a moment. She 
seemed puzzled to answer the question. At last 
she said : 

I didn’t ipean to. When I saw you first, at the 
wharf, at the back there, I just looked at you and 
hid myself again. And then I thought to myself 


86 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


that as you were a gentleman perhaps I might dare 
to ask you what I did.” 

Max, not unnaturally, grew more doubtful still. 
This apparently deserted building, which he was 
asked to enter by the back way, might be a thievish 
den of the worst possible character, and this girl, 
innocent as she certainly looked, might be a thieves’ 
decoy. Something in his face or in his manner 
must have betrayed his thoughts to the shrewd 
Londoner ; for she suddenly drew back, uttering a 
little cry of horror. Without another word she 
turned and slunk back along the passage and into 
the street. 

Now, if Max had been a little older, or a little 
more prudent, if he had indeed been anything but 
a reckless young rascal with a taste for exciting 
adventure, he would have taken this opportunity of 
getting away from such a very questionable neigh- 
borhood. But, in the first place, he was struck by 
the girl’s story, which seemed to fit in only too well 
with what he knew ; and in the second place, he was 
interested in the girl herself, the refinement of 
whose face and manner, in these dubious surround- 
ings, had impressed him as much as the expression 
of horror on her face and the agony of cold which 
had caused her teeth to chatter and her limbs to 
tremble. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


87 


Surely, he thought, the suspicions he had for a 
moment entertained about her were incorrect- He' 
began to feel that he could not go away without 
making an effort to ascertain if there were any truth 
in her story. 

He went along the passage and got back to the 
:wharf by the same means as before. Making his 
way round the pile of timber upon which he had 
first seen the girl, he discovered a little lane, partly 
between and partly over the planks, which he 
promptly followed in the hope of coming in sight 
of her again. 

And, crouching under the wall of a ruinous out- 
house, in an attitude expressive of the dejection of 
utter abandonment, was the vrhite-faced girl. 

The discovery was enough for Max. All consid- 
erations of prudence, of caution, crumbled away 
under the influence of the intense pity he felt for 
the forlorn creature. 

“ Look here,” said he, “ I’ll go in, if you like. 
Have you got a light ?” 

No — o,” answered the girl, in a voice which was 
thick with sobs. “ But I can show you where to 
get one when you get inside.” 

Max had by this time reached the ground, which 
was slimy and damp under the eaves ; and he 
pushed his way, with an air of recklessness which 


88 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


hid some natural trepidation, into the outhouse, the 
door of which was not even fastened. 

“ Why,” said he, turning to the girl, who was 
close behind him, “ you could have got in yourself 
easily enough. At least you would have been 
warmer in here than outside.” 

His suspicions were starting up again, and they 
grew stronger as he perceived that she was paying 
little attention to him, that she seemed to be listen- 
ing for some expected sound. The place in which 
they now stood was quite dark, and Max, impatient 
and somewhat alarmed by the position in which he 
found himself, struck a match and looked round him. 

“ Now,” said he, “ find me a candle, if you can.” 

Even b}^ the feeble light of the match he could 
see that he was in a sort of a scullery, which bore 
traces of recent occupation. A bit of yellow soap, 
some blacking and a couple of brooms in one 
corner, a pail and a wooden chair in another, v^ere 
evidently not “ tenant’s fixtures.” 

And then Max noted a strange circumstance — 
the two small windows were boarded up on the in- 
side. 

By the time he had taken note of this, the girl 
had brought him a candle in a tin candlestick, which 
she had taken from a shelf by the door. 

“ That ’s the way,” she said, in a voice as low as 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


89 


before, pointing to an inner door. “ Through the 
back room, and into the front one. He lies in 
there.” 

Max shuddered. 

“ I can’t say that I particularly want to see him,” 
said he, as he took stock of her in the candle-light, 
and was struck by the peculiar beauty of her large 
blue eyes. 

He felt a strong reluctance to venturing farther 
into this very questionable and mysterious dwell- 
ing ; and he took care to stand where he could see 
both doors, the one which led farther into the house 
and the one by which he had entered. 

The girl heaved a little sigh, of relief apparently. 
And she remained standing before him in the same 
attitude of listening expectancy as he had remarked 
in her already. 

“ What are you waiting for — listening for ?” 
asked Max sharply. 

“ Nothing,” she answered with a start. “ I ’m 
nervous, that’s all. Wouldn’t you be, if you’d 
been waiting two days outside an empty house with 
a dead man inside it ?” 

Her tone was sharp and querulous. Max looked 
at her in bewilderment. 

Empty house !” he repeated. “ What were you 

doing in it, then?” 


90 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


And he glanced round him, assuring himself 
afresh by this second scrutiny of the fact that the 
brick floor and the bare walls of this scullery had 
been kept scrupulously clean. 

The girl’s white face; pale with the curious 
opaque pallor of the Londoner born and bred, 
flushed a very little. She dropped her eyelids 
guiltily. 

“ You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she 
said, at last, rather sulkily. “ I was living here. 
Is that enough ?” 

It was not. And her visitor’s looks told her so. 

“ I was living here with my grandmother,” she 
went on hurriedly, as she saw Max glance at the 
outer door and take a step toward it. ‘'We ’re very 
poor, and it ’s cheaper to live here in a house sup- 
posed to be empty than to pay rent.” 

“ But hardly fair to the landlord,” suggested 
Max. 

“ Oh, Granny doesn’t think much of landlords, 
and, besides, this is part of the property which used 
to belong to her old master, Mr. Horne — ” 

“ Ah!” ejaculated Max, with new interest. 

The girl looked at him inquiringly. 

“ What do you know about him ?” she asked, with 
eagerness. 

“ I have heard of him,” said Max. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


91 


But the astute young Londoner was not to be put 
off so easily. 

‘‘ You know something of the whole family, per- 
haps? Did you know the old gentleman himself?” 

No.” 

‘‘ Do you know — his son ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Oh !” She assumed the attitude of an inquisitor 
immediately. “ Perhaps it was he who sent you 
here to-day ?” 

“ No.” 

She looked long and scrutinizingly m his face, 
suspicious in her turn. “ Then what made you come?” 

Max paused a moment, and then evaded her 
question very neatly. 

“ What made me come in here? Why, I came by 
the invitation of a young lady, who told me she was 
afraid to go in alone.” 

The girl drew back a little. 

“ Yes, so I did. And I am very much obliged to 
you. I — I wanted to ask you to go into that room, 
the front room, and to fetch some things of mine — 
things I have left there. I daren’t go in by myself.” 

Max hesitated. Beside his old suspicions, a new 
one had just started into his mind. 

“ Did you,” he asked, suddenly, “know of some 
letters which were written to Mr. Dudley Horne ?” 


92 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


A change came over the girl’s face ; the expres- 
sion of deadly terror which he had first seen upon it 
seemed to be returning gradually. The blue eyes 
seemed to grow wider, the lines in her cheek and 
mouth to become deeper. After a short pause, dur- 
ing which he noticed that her breath was coming in 
labored gasps, she whispered : 

‘‘ Well, what if I do ? Mind, I don’t say that I 
do. But what if I do ?” 

Her manner had grown fiercely defiant by the time 
she came to the last word. Max found the desire to 
escape becoming even stronger than his curiosity. 
The half-guilty look with which his companion had 
made her last admission caused a new light to flash 
into his mind. This “Granny ” of whom the girl 
spoke, and who was alleged to have disappeared, was 
a woman who had known something of the Horne 
family. Either she or this girl might have been the 
writer of the letter Dudley had received while at The 
Beeches, which had summoned him so hastily back to 
town* What if this old woman had accomplices — 
had attempted to rob Dudley ? And what if Dudley, 
in resisting their attempts, had, in self-defence, 
struck a blow which had caused the death of one of 
his assailants ? Dudley would naturally have been 
silent on the subject of his visit to this questionable , 
haunt, especially to the brother of Doreen. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


93 


“ I think,” cried Max, as he strode quickly to the 
door by which he had come in, “ that the best thing 
you can do is to sacrifice your things, whatever they 
are, and to get out of the place yourself as fast as 
you can.” 

As he spoke he lifted the latch and tried to open 
the door. But although the latch went up, the door 
remained shut. 

Max pulled and shook it, and finally put his knee 
against the side-post and gave the handle of the 
latch a terrific tug. 

It broke in his hand, but the door remained closed. 

He turned round quickly, and saw the girl, with 
one hand on her hip and with the candle held in 
the other, leaning against the whitewashed wall, 
with a smile of amusement on her thin face. 

What a face it was ! Expressive as no other face 
he had ever seen, and wearing now a look of what 
seemed to Max diabolical intelligence and malice. 
She nodded at him mockingly. 

I can’t get out !” thundered he, threateningly, 
with another thump at the door. 

The girl answered in the low voice she always 
used ; by contrast with his menacing tones it seemed 
lower than ever : 

“ I don’t mean you to — yet. I guessed you ’d 
want to go pretty soon, so I locked the door.” 


94 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


CHAPTER VIIL 

FOREWARNED, BUT NOT FOREARMED. 

“ By Jove !” muttered Max. Then, with a sudden 
outburst of energy, inspired by indignation at the 
trap in which he found himself, he dashed across 
the floor to the zinc pail he had previously noticed, 
and swinging it round his head, was about to make 
such an ajtack upon the door as its old timbers 
could scarcely have resisted, when the girl suddenly 
vshot between him and the door, placing herself 
with her back to it and her arms spread out, so 
quickly that he only missed by a hair’s breadth 
dealing her such a blow as would undoubtedly have 
split her skull. 

In the effort to avoid this, Max, checking himself, 
staggered and slipped, falling on the brick floor, 
pail and all. 

“ Oh, I am sorry ! So sorry !” 

Again the oddly expressive face had changed 
completely. Her scarlet lips — those vividly red 
lips which go with an opaque white skin — were in- 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


95 


stantly parted with genuine terror. Her eyes 
looked soft and shining, full of tender feminine 
kindness and sympathy. Down she went on her 
knees beside him, asking anxiously : 

“ Are you hurt ? Oh, I know your wrist is hurt !'’ 

Max gave her a glance, the result of which was 
that he began to feel more afraid of her than of the 
locked door. About this strange, almost uncannily 
beautiful child of the riverside slum there was a 
fascination which appealed to him more and more. 
The longer he looked at the wide, light-blue eyes, 
listened to the hoarse but moving voice, the more 
valiantly he had to struggle against the spell which 
he felt her to be casting upon him. 

“ I Ve strained my wrist a little, I think. Nothing 
to matter,” said he. 

But as he moved he found that the wrist gave 
him pain. He got up from the floor, and stood with 
his left hand clasping the injured right wrist, not so 
eager as before to make his escape. 

Why don’t you let me out ?” he asked at last, 
sharply, with an effort. 

The girl looked at him with yet a new expression 
on her mobile face — an expression of desperation. 

‘‘Because I couldn’t bear it any longer,” she 
whispered. And as she spoke her eyes wandered 
round the bare walls and rested for a moment on 


96 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


the inner door. “ Because when you’ve been all 
alone in the cold, without any food, without any one 
to speak to for two days and two nights, you feel 
you must speak to some one, whatever comes of it. 
If I ’d had to wait out there, listening, listening, for 
another night, I should have been mad, raving mad 
in the morning.” 

“ But I don’t understand it at all,” said Max, 
again inclining to belief in the girl’s story, impressed 
by her passionate earnestness. “ Where has your 
grandmother gone to ? Why didn’t she take you 
with her ? Can’t you tell me the whole story ?” 

The girl looked at him curiously. 

“ Just now you only thought of getting away.” 

‘‘ I don’t care to be detained by lock and key, 
certainly,” said Max. “ But if you will unlock the 
^ door, I am quite ready to wait here until you have 
unburdened your mind, if you want to do that.” 

She looked at him doubtfully. 

“ That ’s a promise, mind,” said she at last. 
“And it’s a promise you wouldn’t mind giving, I 
think, if you believed in half I ’ve gone through.” 

She took a key from her pocket, unlocked the 
outer door and set it ajar. 

“ Will that do for you ?” asked she. 

“Yes, that ’s all right.” 

She took up the candle, which she had put on a 


THERE ’S A DEAD MAN IN THERE V'—See Page 82 





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The Wharf by the Docks, 


97 


shelf while she knelt to Jind out whether he was 
hurt, and crossing the brick floor with rapid, rather 
stealthy steps, she put her fingers on the latch of 
the inner door. 

“ Keep close !" whispered she. 

Max obeyed. He kept so close that the girl’s 
soft hair, which was of the ash-fair color so com- 
mon in English blondes who. have been flaxen- 
headed in their childhood, almost touched his face. 
She opened the door and entered what was evi- 
dently the back room of the deserted shop. 

A dark room it must have been, t^en in broadest 
daylight. Opposite to the door by which they had 
entered was one which was glazed in the upper 
half ; this evidently led into the shop itself, al- 
though the old red curtain which hung over the 
glass panes hid the view of what was beyond. 
There was a little fireplace, in which were the 
burnt-out ashes of a recent fire. There was a deal 
table in the middle of the room, and a cloth of a 
common pattern of blue and red check lay in a 
heap on the floor. A couple of plain Windsor 
chairs, and a third with arms and a cushion, a 
hearth-rug, a fender and fire-irons, completed the 
furniture of the room. 

And the one window, a small one, which looked 
out upon the wharf, in a corner formed by the out- 


98 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


house on the one side and a shed on the other, was 
carefully boarded up. 

Grimly desolate the dark, bare room looked, small 
as it was ; and a couple of rats, which scurried over 
the floor as Max entered, added a suggestion of 
other horrors to the deserted room. The girl had 
managed to get behind Max, and he turned sharply 
with a suspicion that she meant to shut him into the 
room by himself. 

‘‘ It ’s all right — it’s all right,” whispered she, re- 
assuringly. “ He isn’t in here. But he ’s there.” 

And she pointed to the door with the red curtain. 

Max stopped. The farther he advanced into this 
mysterious house the less he liked the prospect pre- 
sented do his view. And the girl herself seemed to 
have forgotten her pretext of wanting something 
fetched out of that mysterious third room. She 
remained leaning against the wall, close by the door 
by which she and Max had entered, still holding the 
candlestick and staring at the red curtain with eyes 
full of terror. Max found his own eyes fascinated 
by the steady gaze, and he looked in the same direc- 
tion. 

Staring intently at the bit of faded stuff, he was 
almost ready to imagine, in the silence and gloom 
of the place, that he saw it move. His breath 
came fast. Overcome by the uncanny influences 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


99 


of the dreary place itself, of the hideous story he 
had heard, of the girl’s white face. Max began to 
feel as if the close, cold air of the unused room was 
like the touch of clammy fingers on his face. 

Even as this consciousness seized upon him, he 
heard a moan, a sliding sound, a thud, and the light 
went suddenly out. 

In the first impulse of horror at his position Max 
uttered a sharp exclamation, but remained immov- 
able. Indeed, in the darkness, in this unknown 
place, to take a step in any direction was impossible. 
He stood listening, waiting for some sound, some 
ray of light, to guide him. 

All he heard was the scurrying of the rats as they 
ran, disturbed by the noise, across the room and 
behind the wainscot in the darkness. 

At last he turned and tried to find the door by 
which he had come in. He found it, and had his 
hand upon the latch, when his right foot touched 
something soft, yielding. He opened the door, 
which was not locked, as he had feared, and was 
about to make his way as fast as he could into the 
open air, when another moan, fainter than before, 
reached his ears. 

No light came into the room through the open 
door ; so he struck a wax match. His nerves were 
not at their best, and it was some time before he 


lOO 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


could get a light. When he did so, he discovered 
that the thing his foot had touched was the body of 
the girl, lying in a heap on the floor close to the 
wainscot. 

Now Max was divided between his doubts and his 
pity ; but it was not possible that doubt should 
carry the day in the face of this discovery. Whether 
she had fainted, or whether this was only a ruse on 
her part to detain him, to interest him, he could not 
leave her lying there. 

The tin candlestick had rolled away on the floor, 
and the candle had fallen out of it. The first thing 
Max had to do was to replace the one in the other, 
and to get a serviceable light. By the time he had 
done so he saw a movement in the girl’s body. She 
was lying with her head on the floor. He put his 
arm under her head to raise it, when she started 
up, so suddenly as to alarm him, leaned back against 
the wall, still in her cramped, sitting position, and 
glared into his face. 

Look here,” she said faintly, “ I couldn’t help it. 
You know — I think — I ’m almost — starving.” 

Heavens ! Why didn’t I think of it ! Poor 
child ! Get up ; let me help you. Come to this 
chair. Wait here, only a few minutes. I’ll get 
you something to eat and drink.” 

He was helping her up ; had got her on her feet, 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


lOI 


indeed, when she suddenly swung round in his 
arms, clinging to his sleeve and staring again with 
the fixed, almost vacant look which made him 
begin to doubt whether her reason had not suffered. 

“ No, no, no,” cried she, gasping . for breath ; “ I 
can t stay here. I know, I know you wouldn’t come 
back. If you once got out, got outside in the air, 
you would go back to your home, and I should be 
left here — alone — with the rats — and — that D 

And again she pointed to the curtained door. 

Max felt his teeth chattering as he tried to reas- 
sure her. 

Come, won’t you trust me ? I ’ll only be a min- 
ute. I want to get you some brandy.” 

“ Brandy? No. I dare not.” 

And she shook her head. But Max persisted. 

Nonsense — you must have it. There ’s a public- 
house at the corner, of course. Come out on to 
the wharf, if you like and wait for me.” 

It was pitiful to see the expression of her eyes as 
she looked in his face without a word. She was 
leaning back in the wooden arm-chair, one hand 
lying in her lap, the other hanging limply over the 
side of the chair. Her hair, which had been fast- 
ened in a coil at the back of her head, had been 
loosened in the fall, and now drooped about her 
head and face in disorder, which increased her 


102 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


pathetic beauty. And it was at this point that Max 
noticed, with astonishment, that her hands, though 
not specially beautiful or small or in any way re- 
markable, were not those of a woman used to the 
roughest work. 

She made an attempt to rise, apparently doubting 
his good faith and afraid to lose sight of him, as he 
retreated toward the door. But she fell back again, 
and only stared at him dumbly. 

The mute appeal touched Max to the quick. He 
was always rather susceptible, but it seemed to him 
that he had never felt, at the hands of any girl, such 
a variety of emotions as this forlorn creature roused 
in him with every movement, every look, every 
word. 

He hesitated, came back a step and leaned over 
the table, looking at her. 

“ I’ll come back,” said he, in a voice hardly above 
a whisper. “ Of course I’ll come back. You don’t 
think I ’d leave you like this, do you ?” 

For a moment she stared at him with doubt in her 
eyes ; then, as if reassured, her lips parted in a very 
faint smile, and she made a slight motion with her 
head which he was fain to take as a sign of her 
trust. 

He had reached the door,,when by a weak gesture 
she called him back again. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


103 


“ If — if you should meet anybody — I ’m expecting 
Granny all the time — I ’m sure she wouldn’t leave 
me altogether like this — you will come back all the 
same, won’t you ?” 

Her earnestness over this matter had given her 
back a little strength. She leaned forward over one 
arm of the chair, impressing her words upon him 
with a bend of the head. 

“ Oh, no, I shan’t mind Granny,” replied Max, 
confidently. 

“ Well, you wouldn’t mind her if she was in a 
good humor,” went on the - girl, doubtfully, “but 
when she ’s in a bad one, oh, well, then,” in a low- 
ered voice of deep confidence, “ Tni afraid of her my- 
self T 

“ That ’s all right. It would take more than an 
old woman to frighten me ! Tell me what she ’s 
like and what her name is, and I can present my- 
self to her as a morning caller.” 

The girl seemed to have recovered altogether 
from her attack of faintness, since she was able to 
detain him thus from his proposed errand on her 
behalf. She smiled again, less faintly than before, 
and shook her head. 

“ I don’t think there ’s much to describe about 
Granny. She was a housekeeper at old Mr. Horne’s 
house in the city, you know, and she looks just as 


104 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


old housekeepers always look. Her name’s Mrs. 
Higgs. But,” and the girl looked frightened again, 
don’t tell her you ’ve come to see me. She ’s very 
particular. At least — I meam— ” 

A pretty confusion, a touch of hesitancy, the first 
sign of anything girlish which Max had seen in 
this strange creature, made her stop and turn her 
head away. And, the effort of speaking over, she 
drooped again. 

“ I won’t be long.” 

And Max, puzzled himself by the feelings he had 
toward this strange little white-bodied being, went 
through the outhouse into the open air. 

Outside, he found himself staggering, he didn’t 
know why — whether from the emotions he had ex- 
perienced or from the clammy, close hair of the 
shut-up room ; all he knew was that by the time he 
reached the public-house, which he had correctly 
foreseen was to be found at the corner, he felt quite 
as much in want of the brandy as his patient her- 
self. 

It occurred to him, as he stood in the bar, swal- 
lowing some fiery liquid of dubious origin which 
the landlord had sold to him as brandy, to make a 
casual inquiry about Mrs. Higgs. 

“ Yes,” said the landlord, “ I do know a Mrs. 
Higgs. She comes in here sometimes ; she likes her 


The Wharf by the Docks. 105 

glass. But they know more about her at The Ad- 
miral’s Arms, Commercial Road way,” and he gave 
a nod of the head to indicate the direction of that 
neighborhood. 

“ Do you know her address?” asked Max. 

The landlord smiled. 

“ It ’ud take a clever head to keep the addresses 
of all the chance customers as comes in here. For 
the matter of that, very few of ’em have any ad- 
dresses in particular ; it ’s one court one week, and 
t’ other the next.” 

But she ’s a very respectable woman, the Mrs. 
Higgs I mean,” said Max, tentatively. 

“Oh, yes, sir; I’ve nothin’ to say ag’inst her,” 
and the landlord, with a look which showed that he 
objected to be “ pumped,” turned to another cus- 
tomer. 

Max took the brandy he had bought for the girl 
and hurried back to the place where he had left 
her. As he went, an instinct of curiosity, natural 
enough, considering his recently acquired knowl- 
ledge, made him go down the passage and try to 
look in through the grim, dusty window of the shop. 
But this also was boarded up on the inner side, 
so that no view could be obtained of what was 
within. 

It seemed to Max, however, as he stood there, 


io6 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


with his eyes fixed on the planks, trying to discover 
an aperture, that between the cracks of the boards 
there glimmered a faint light. It seemed to flicker, 
then it died out. 

Surely, he thought, the girl has not summoned 
enough courage to go into the room by herself ? 

He hurried back down the passage, and made his 
way as before to the wharf. Stumbling round the 
piles of timber, he found the lane by which he had 
entered and left the house. It seemed to him, 
though he told himself it must be only fancy, that 
some of the loose planks had been disturbed since 
his last journey over them. Reaching the door of 
outhouse, which he had left ajar, he found it shut. 

He was now sure that some one had gone in, or 
come out, since he left ; and for a moment the cir- 
cumstance seemed to him sufficiently suspicious to 
make him pause. The next moment, however, the 
remembrance of the girl’s white face, of the plead- 
ing blue eyes, returned to him vividly, calling to 
him, drawing him back by an irresistible spell. He 
pushed open the door boldl3^ crossed the brick 
floor and reentered the inner room. The candle 
was still burning on the table, but the girl was not 
there. 

Max looked round the room. He was puzzled, 
suspicious. As he stood by the table staring at the 


The Wharf by the Docks. 107 

wall opposite the fireplace, wondering whether to 
go out or to explore further, he found his eyes at- 
tracted to a spot in the wall-paper where, in the 
feeble light, something like two glittering beads 
shone out uncannily in the middle of the pattern. 
With a curious sensation down his spine. Max took 
a hasty step back to the door, and the beads moved 
slowly. 

It was a pair of eyes watching him as he moved. 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE MAN WHO HESITATES. 

Max had become accustomed, in the course of 
this adventurous visit, to surprises and alarms. 
Every, step in the enterprise he had undertaken 
had brought a fresh excitement, a fresh horror. 
But nothing that he had so far heard or seen 
had given him such a sick feeling of indefinable 
terror as the sight of these two eyes, turning to 
watch his every movement. For a moment he 
watched them, then he made a bold dash for the 
place where he had seen them, and aimed a blow 
with his fist at the wall. 


io8 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


He heard the loose plaster rattle down ; but when 
he looked for the result of his blow, he saw nothing 
but the old-fashioned, dirty paper on the wall, ap- 
parently without a hole or tear in it.. 

The discovery made him feel sick. 

He turned to make his escape from the house, to 
which he felt that he was a fool to have returned at 
all, when the door by which he had entered opened 
slowly, and the girl came in. 

A little flash, as of pleased surprise, passed over 
her white face. Then she said, under her breath : 

“So you have come back. I didn’t think you 
would. I — I am sorry you did.” 

Max looked rather blank. The girl’s attraction 
for him had, increased during the short period he 
had been absent from her. He had had time to 
think over his feelings, to find his interest stimu- 
lated by the process. Imagination, which does so 
much for a woman with a man, and for a man with 
a woman, had begun to have play. He had come 
back determined to find out more about the girl, to 
probe to the bottom of the mystery in which, per- 
haps, consisted so much of the charm she had for 
him. 

Even now, upon her entrance, the first sight of 
her face had made his heart leap up. 

There was a pause when she finished speaking. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


109 


Max, who was usually fluent enough with her sex, 
hesitated, stammered and at last said : 

“You are sorry I came back? Yet you seemed 
anxious enough to make me promise to come 
back !” 

He observed that a great change had come over 
her. Instead of being nerveless and lifeless, as he 
had left her, with dull eyes and weak, helpless 
limbs, she was now agitated, excited ; she glanced 
nervously about her while he spoke, and tapped the 
finger-tips of one hand restlessly with those of the 
other as she listened. 

“ I know,” she replied, rapidly, “ I know I was. 
But — Granny has come back. She came in while 
you were gone.” 

Max glanced at the wall, where he had fancied he 
saw the pair of watching eyes. 

“ Oh,” said he, “ that explains what I saw, perhaps. 
Where is your grandmother?” 

“ She has gone upstairs to her room under the 
roof.” 

“ Ah ! Are you sure she is upstairs ? That she is 
not in the ne*xt room, for instance, watching me 
through some secret peep-hole of hers ?” 

The girl stared at him in silence as he pointed to 
the wall, and as he ran his hand over its surface. 

I saw a pair of eyes watching me just now,” he 


I lO 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


went on, “ from the middle of this wall. I could 
swear to it ! ” 

The girl looked incredulous, and passed her hand 
over the wall in her turn. Then she shook her 
head. 

“ I can feel nothing,” said she. “ It must be your 
fancy. There is no room there. It is the ground- 
floor of an old warehouse next door which has been 
to let for years and years^ — longer than this.” 

He still looked doubtful, and she added, sharply : 

You can see for yourself if you like.” 

As she spoke, she was turning to go back into 
the outhouse, with a sign to him to follow her. 
But even as she did so, another thought must have 
struck her, for she shut the door ,and turned back 
again. 

“ No,” she said, decisively, “ of course you don’t 
want to see anything so much as the outside of this 
gloomy old house. Don’t think me ungrateful ; I 
am not, but ” — she came a little nearer to Max, so 
that she could whisper very close to his ear — “ if 
Granny knew that I ’d let a stranger ^in to the place 
'while she was away, I should never hear the last of 
it ; and — and — when she ’s angry I ’m afraid of her.” 

Max felt a pang of compassion for the girl. 

“ If you are afraid of her being angry,” said he, 
“ you had better let her see me and hear my ex- 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


1 1 1 


planation. I can make things right with her. I 
have great powers of persuasion — with old ladies — 
I assure you ; and you don’t look as if you were 
equal to a strife of tongues with her or with any- 
body just now ; and I ’d forgotten ; I ’ve brought 
something for you. 

Max took from the pocket of his overcoat the 
little flat bottle filled with brandy with which he 
had provided himself ; but the girl pushed it away 
with alarm. 

“ Don’t let Granny see it !” she whispered. 

“ All right. But I want you to taste it ; it will 
do you good.” 

She shook her head astutely. 

“ I am not ill,” she said, shortly, and I don’t 
know that I should take it if I were. I see too 
much of those things not to be afraid of them. 
And, now, sir, will you go?” After a short pause 
she added, in an ominous tone — “ while you have 
the chance.” 

Max still lingered. He had forgotten his 
curiosity, he had almost forgotten what had brought 
him to the house in the first instance. He did not 
want to leave this girl, with the great, light-blue 
eyes and the scarlet lips, the modest manner "and 
the moving voice. 

When the silence which followed her words had 


J 12 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


lasted some seconds, she turned from him im- 
patiently, and leaving him by the door, crossed the 
little room quickly, opened one of the two wooden 
doors which stood one on each side of the fireplace, 
revealing a cupboard with rows of shelves, and took 
from the bottom a few chips of dry wood, evidently 
gleaned from the wharf outside, a box of matches 
and part of a newspaper, and dropping down on 
her knees on the hearth, began briskly to rake out 
the ashes and to prepare a fire. 

Max stood w^atching her, divided between pru- 
dence, which urged him to go, and inclination, which 
prompted him to stay. 

She went on with her work steadily for some 
minutes, without so much as a look behind. Yet 
Max felt that she was aware of his presence, and he 
knew also, without being sure how the knowledge 
came to him, that the girl's feeling toward himself 
had changed now that she was no longer alone in 
the house with him. The constraint which might 
have been expected toward a person of the opposite 
sex in the strange circumstances, which had been 
so entirely absent from her manner on their first 
meeting, had now stolen into her attitude toward 
him'. 

Yet, although the former absence of this con- 
straint had been a most effective part of her attrac- 


The Wharf by the Do'cks. 


113 


tion for him, Max began to think that the new and 
slight self-consciousness which caused her to affect 
to ignore him was a fresh charm. Before, while 
she implored him to come into the house with her, 
it was to a fellow-creature only that the frightened 
girl had made her appeal. Now that her grand- 
mother had returned, and she was lonely and unpro- 
tected no longer, she remembered that he was a 
man. 

This ch,ange in her attitude toward him was strik- 
ingly exemplified when, having lit the fire, she rose 
from her knees, and taking a kettle from the hob, 
turned toward the door. 

“ You haven’t gone then ?” said she. 

No !” 

She came forward, taking the lid off the kettle 
as she walked. 

“ You won’t be advised ? ” 

She was passing him swiftly, with the manner of 
a busy housewife, when Max, encouraged by her 
new reserve, and a demure side-look, which was not 
without coquetry, seized the hand which held the 
kettle, and asked her if he was to get no thanks for 
coming to her assistance as he had done. 

I did thank you,” said she, not attempting to 
withdrew her hand, but standing, grave and with 
downcast eyes, between him and the door. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


114 


“ Well, in a way, you did. But you didn’t thank 
me enough. You yourself admit it was a bold 
thing for a stranger to do !” 

The girl looked suddenly up into his face, and 
again he saw in her expressive eyes a look which 
was altogether new. Like flashes of lightning the 
changes passed over her small, mobile features, to 
which the absence of even a tinge of healthy pink 
color gave, perhaps, an added power of portraying 
the emotions which might be agitating her. There 
was now something like defiance in her eyes. 

“ What was your boldness compared to mine ?” 
said she. “ You are a man ; you have strong arms, 
at any rate, I suppose. I am only a girl, and you 
are a gentleman, and gentlemen are not chivalrous. 
Who dared the most then, you or I ?” 

“So gentlemen are not chivalrous ?” said Max, 
ignoring the last part of her speech. “ All gentle- 
men are not, I suppose you mean ? Or rather, all 
the men who ought to be gentlemen ?” 

“ No,” answered the girl, stubbornly. “ I mean 
what I said. You with the rest. You ’d act rightly 
toward a man, I suppose, as a matter of course. You 
can’t act rightly toward a woman, a girl, without 
expecting to be paid for it.” ' 

Max was taken aback. Here was a change, in- 
deed, from the poor, clinging, pleading, imploring 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


US 


creature of twenty minutes before. He reddened 
a little and let her hand slip from his grasp. 

“ I believe you are right,” he said, at last, “ though 
you are rather severe. But let me tell you that the 
word ‘ chivalry ’ is misleading altogether. It is ap- 
plied to those middle-aged Johnnies — no, I mean 
those Johnnies of the Middle Ages — -who were sup- 
posed to go about rescuing damsels in distress, isn’t 
it ? Well, you don’t know what happened after the 
rescue was effected ; but I like to suppose, myself, 
that the girl didn’t just say ‘ Thanks — awfully ’and 
cut him aead forever afterward.” 

“ You think the knight expected payment, just 
as you do, for his services ?” ' 

“ I think so. A very small payment, but one 
which he would appreciate highly.” 

The girl leaned against the wall by the door and 
looked at him with something like contempt for a 
moment. Then she smiled, not encouragingly, but 
with mockery in her eyes. 

You have a tariff, I suppose,” said she, cuttingly, 
“ a regular scale of charges, as, perhaps, you will 
say the knights had. Pray, what is your charge in 
the present instance ? A kiss, perhaps, or two ?” 

Now, Max had, indeed, indulged the hope that 
she would bestow upon him this small mark of 
gratitude. It came upon him with a shock of sur- 


1 1 6 The Wharf by the Docks, 


prise that a girl who had been so bold as to sum- 
mon him should make so much fuss about the re- 
ward he had certainly earned. He had expected 
to get it with a laugh and a blush, as a matter of 
course. For his modest suggestion to be taken so 
seriously was a disconcerting occurrence. He drew 
himself up a little. 

“ I don’t pretend I should have been generous 
enough to refuse such a payment if you had shown 
the slightest willingness to make it,” said he. 

But as it ’s the sort of coin that has no value unless 
given voluntarily, we will consider the debt settled 
without it.” 

He made a pretense of leaving her at this point, 
without the slightest intention Cf persisting in it. 
This curious conference had all the zest of a most 
novel kind of flirtation, which was none the less 
piquant for the girl’s haughty airs. 

There are feminine eyes which allure as much 
while they seem to repel as they do when they con- 
sciously attract ; and the light-blue ones which 
shone in the white face of this East End enchant- 
ress were of the number. 

Max opened the door and slowly stepped into the 
outhouse. At the moment of glancing back — an in- 
evitable thing — he saw that she looked sorry, dis- 
mayed. He took his gloves out of his pocket and 


The Wharf by the Docks. i i 7 

began to draw them on, to fill up the time. By the 
time the second finger of the first glove was in its 
place, for he was deliberate, the girl had come into 
the outhouse, passed him, and was drawing water 
from the tap into her kettle. He watched her. 
She knew it, but pretended not to notice. The cir- 
cumstance of the water flowing freely in the house 
which was supposed to be deserted made an excuse 
for another remark, and a safe one. 

“ I thought they cut the water off from empty 
houses ; that is, houses supposed to be empty.” 

She turned round with so much alacrity as to 
suggest that she was glad of the pretext for re- 
opening communications. And this time there was 
a bright look of arch amusement on her face in- 
stead of her former expression of outraged dignity. 

So*they do. But — the people who know how to 
live without paying rent know a few other things, 
too.” 

Max laughed a little, but he was rather shocked. 
This pretty and in some respects fastidiously cor- 
rect young person ought not surely to find amuse- 
ment in defrauding even a water company. 

The fact reminded him of that whi^h the intoxi- 
cation caused by a pretty face had made him forget 
— that he was in a house of dubious character, from 
which he would be wise in escaping without fur- 


The Wharf by^the Docks, 


ii8 


ther delay. But then, again, it was the very odd- 
ness of the contrast between the character of the 
house and the behavior of the girl which made the 
piquancy of the situation. 

‘•Oh, yes; of course; I’d forgotten that,” as- 
sented Max, limply. 

And then he fell into silence, and the girl stood 
quietly by the tap, which ran slowly, till the kettle 
was full. 

And then it began to run over. 

Now this incident was a provocation. Max was 
artful enough to know that no girl who ever fills a 
kettle lets it run over unless she is much preoccu- 
pied. He chose to think she w;as preoccupied with 
him. So he laughed, and she looked quickly round 
and blushed, and turned her back upon him with 
ferocity. 

He came boldly up to her. ^ 

“ I ’m so sorry,” said he, in a coaxing, confidential, 
persuasive tone, such as she had given him no 
proper encouragement to use, “ that we ’ve had a 
sort of quarrel just at the last, and spoiled the im- 
pression of you I wanted to carry away.” 

He was evidently in no hurry to carry anything 
away, though he went on with the glove-buttoning 
with much energy. 

She listened, with her eyes down, making, kettle 


The Wharf by the Docks. 119 

and all, the prettiest picture possible. There was no 
light in the outhouse except that which came from 
a little four-penny brass hand-lamp, which the girl 
must have lit just before her last entrance into the 
inner room. It was behind her, on a shelf against 
the wall ; and the light shone through the loose 
threads of her fair hair, making an aureole round 
the side view of her little head. 

She was bewitching like that, so the susceptible 
Max thought, while he debated with himself 
whether he now dared to try again for that small 
reward. And he reluctantly decided that he did not 
dare. And again there was something piquant in 
the fact of his not daring. 

The girl, after a short pause, looked up ; perhaps, 
though not so susceptible as he, she was not in- 
sensible to the fact that Max was young .and hand- 
some, well dressed, a little in love with her, and 
altogether different from the types of male human- 
ity most common to Limehouse. 

“ If,” she suggested at last, with some hesitation, 
you really think it better to see my grandmother, 
she will be down very soon. I ’m going to make 
some tea ; and you could wait, if you liked, fn the 
next room.” 

I should be delighted,” said Max. 

Off came the gloves ; and as the girl tripped 


120 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


quickly into the adjoining room, he followed with 
alacrity. 

“Mind,” cried she suddenly, as she turned from 
the fireplace and stood by the table in an attitude 
of warning, “ it is at your own risk, you know, that 
you stay. You can guess that the people who be- 
long to a hole-and-corner place like this are not the 
sort you ’re accustomed to meet at West-End dinner 
tables, nor yet at an archbishop’s garden-party. 
But as you ’ve stayed so long, it will be better for 
me if you sta}^ till you have seen Granny, as she 
must have heard me talking to you by this time.” 

Now Max, in the interest of his conversation with 
the girl, had forgotten all abouf less pleasant sub- 
jects. Now that they were suddenly recalled to his 
mind, he felt uneasy at the idea of the unseen but 
ever-watchful “ Granny,” who .might be listening to 
every word he uttered, noting every glance he threw 
at the girl. 

And then the natural suspicion flashed into his 
mind : Was there a “ Granny ” after all ? or was the 
invisible one some person more to be dreaded than 
any old woman ? 

Another glance at the girl, and the fascinated, 
bewildered Max resolved to risk everything for a 
little more of her society. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


I2I 


CHAPTER X. 

GRANNY. 

There was some constraint upon them both at 
first ; and Max had had time to feel a momentary- 
regret that he had been foolish enough to stay, 
when he was surprised to find the girl’s eyes staring 
fixedly at a small parcel which he had taken from 
his coat-tail pocket and placed upon the table. 

It was a paper of biscuits which he had brought 
from the public-house. He had forgotten them till 
that moment. 

“ I brought these for you — ” he began. 

And then, before he could add more, he was 
shocked by the avidity with which she almost 
snatched them from his hand. 

“ I — I ’d forgotten !” stammered he. 

It was an awful sight. The girl was hungry, 
ravenously hungry, and he had been chatting to 
her and talking about kisses when she was starv- 
ing ! 

There was again a faint spot of color in her 


122 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


cheeks, as she turned her back to him and crouched 
on the hearth with the food, 

“ Don’t look at me,” she said, half laughing, half 
ashamed. “ I suppose you ’ve never been without 
food for two days !” 

Max could not at first answer. He sat in one of 
the wooden chairs, with his elbows on his knees 
and his hands clasped, calling himself, mentally, all 
sorts of things for his idiotic forgetfulness. 

And to think,” said he, at last, in a hoarse and 
not over-steady-voice, that I dared to compare 
myself to a knight-errant !” 

The biscuits were disappearing rapidly. Pres- 
ently she turned and let him see her face again. 

“ Perhaps,” suggested she, still with her mouth 
full, “ as you say, one didn’t hear quite all about 
those gentlemen. Perhaps they forgot things 
sometimes. And perhaps,” she added, with a most 
gracious change to gratitude and kindness, “ they 
weren’t half so sorry when they forgot as you 
are.” 

Max listened in fresh amazement. Where on 
earth had this child of the slums, in the cheap-stuff 
frock and clumsy shoes, got her education, her re- 
finement ? Her talk was not so very different from 
that of the West-End dinner-tables she had laughed 
at. What did it mean ? 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


123 


Do you really feel so grateful for the little I 
have done ?” he asked suddenly. 

The girl drew a long breath. 

“ I don’t dare to tell you how grateful.” 

‘‘ Well, then, will you tell me all about yourself? 
I ’m getting more puzzled every moment. I hope 
it isn’t rude to say so, but — you and this place don’t 
fit:' 

For a moment the girl did not answer. Then she 
put the paper which had held the biscuits carefully 
into the cupboard by the fireplace, and as she did 
so he saw her raise her shoulders with an involun- 
tary and expressive shrug. 

“ I suppose it is rather surprising,” she said at 
last, as she folded her hands in her lap and kept 
her eyes fixed upon the red heart of the fire. “ It 
surprises me sometimes.” 

There was a pause, but Max would not interrupt 
her, for he thought from her manner that an ex- 
planation of some sort was coming. At last she 
went on, raising her head a little^ but without look- 
ing at him : 

“And very likely it will astonish you still more 
to hear that in coming to this place I made a change 
for the better.” 

Max was too much surprised to make any com- 
ment. 


1 24 The Wharf by the Docks, 

“ If you want to know my name, date of birth, 
parentage and the rest of it,” went on the girl, in a 
tone of half-playful recklessness, “ why, I have no 
details to give you. I don’t know anything about 
myself, and nobody I know seems to know any 
more. Granny says she does, but I don’t believe 
her.” 

She paused. 

“ Why, surely,” began Max, “ your own grand- 
mother — ” 

“ But I don’t even know that she is my own 
grandmother,” interrupted the girl, sharply. “ If 
she were, wouldn’t she know my name T 

“ That seems probable, certainly.” 

“ Well, she doesn’t, or she says she doesn’t. She 
pretends she has forgotten, or puts me off when I 
ask questions, though any one can understand my 
asking them.” 

This was puzzling, certainly. Max had no satisfac- 
tory explanation to offer, so he shook his head and 
tried to look wise. As long as she would go on 
talking, and about herself, too, he didn’t care what 
she said. 

“ What does she call you ?” asked he, after a 
silence. 

“ Carrie — Carrie Rivers. But the ‘ Rivers ’ is not 
my name, I know. It was given me by Miss Ab 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


125 


dridge, who brought me up, and she told me it 
wasn’t my real name, but that she gave it to me be- 
cause it was ‘ proper to have one.’ So how can I be- 
lieve Granny when she says that it is not my name ? 
Or at least that she has forgotten whether I had 
any other? If she had really forgotten all that, 
wouldn’t she have forgotten my existence alto- 
gether, and not have taken the trouble to hunt me 
out, and to take me away from the place where she 
found me ?” 

“Where was that?” asked Max. 

The girl hung her head, and answered in a lower 
voice, as if her reply were a distasteful, discred- 
itable admission : 

“ I was bookkeeper at a hotel — a wretched place, 
where I was miserable, very miserable.” 

Max was more puzzled than ‘ever. 

Every fresh detail about herself and her life made 
him wonder the more why she was refined, edu- 
cated. Presently she looked up, and caught the ex- 
pression on his face. 

“ That was after Miss Aldridge died,” she said, 
with a sigh. “ I had lived with her ever since I 
was a little girl. I can hardly remember anything 
before that— except— some things, little things, 
which I would rather forget.” And her face 
clouded again. “ She was a very old lady, who had 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


1 26 


been rich once, and poor after that. She had kept 
a school before she had me ; and after that, I was 
the school. I had to do all the learning of a school- 
ful. Do you see ?” 

‘‘ Ah,” said Max, “ now I understand ! And didn’t 
she ever let you know who placed you with her?” 

“ She said it was my grandmother,” answered 
Carrie, doubtfully. 

“ This grandmother ? The one you call Granny ?” 

“ I don’t know. You see, Mrs. Higgs never turned 
up till about ten months ago, long after Miss Al- 
dridge had died. She died the Christmas before last.” 

“ And how did you get to the hotel ?” 

“ I had to do something. Miss Aldridge had only 
her annuity. I had done everything for her, ex- 
cept the very hardest work, that she wouldn’t let 
me do ; and when shfe died, suddenly, I had to find 
some way of living. And somebody knew of the 
hotel. So I went.” 

“ Where was it ?” 

“ Oh, not so very far from here. It was a dreadful 
place. They treated me fairly well because I am 
quick at accounts, so I was useful. But, oh, it wasn’t 
a place for a girl at all.” 

“ But why didn’t you get a better one ? Anything 
would have been better, surely, than coming here, 
to live like this !” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


127 


Max was earnest, impassioned even. The girl 
smiled mournfully as she just caught his eyes for a 
moment, and then looked at the fire again. 

“ You don’t understand,” she said, simply. “ How 
should you ? I should have had no reference to 
give if I had wanted another situation. The name 
of the place where I had been living would have 
been worse than none.” 

But there are lots of places where you could 
have gone, religious and philanthropic institutions 
I think they call themselves, where they would 
have listened to what you had to say, and done 
their best to help you.” 

Carrie looked dubious. 

“ Are there ?” said she. “ Well, there may be, of 
course. But I think not. Plenty of institutions of 
one sort and another there are, of course. But tho.se 
for women are generally for one class — a class I 
don’t belong to.” 

Max shuddered. This matter-of-fact tone jarred 
upon him. It was not immodest, but it revealed a 
mind accustomed to view the facts of life, not one 
nourished on pretty fancies, like those of his 
sisters. 

And even if,” she went on, “ there were a home, 
an institution, a girl like me could go to and obtain 
employment, it wouldn’t be a life one would care 


128 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


for ; it would be a sort of workhouse at the best, 
wouldn’t it ?” 

“ Wouldn’t it be better than — this ?” 

“ I don’t even know that. Granny ’s fond of me 
.in her way. That ’s the one thing no sort of insti- 
tution can give you, the feeling that you belong to 
some one, that you ’re not just a number.” 

“ Well, but you ’re well educated — and — ” 

He was going to. say “ pretty,” but her look 
stopped him. 

It was almost a look of reproach. 

Do you think I ’m the only fairly -educated girl 
in London who doesn’t know how to get a living ? 
Haven’t you ever found, in poor, wretched little 
shops, girls who speak well, look different from 
the others ? Don’t you know that there are lots of 
V girls like me who are provided for, well provided 
for at the outset, and then forgotten, or neglected, 
and left to starve, to drift, to get on the best way 
they can ? Oh, surely you must know that ! Only 
people like you don’t care to think about these 
things. And you are quite right, quite right. 
Why should you?” 

Suddenly the girl sprang up and made a gesture 
with her hands as it to dismiss the subject. Max, 
watching her with eager interest, saw pass quickly 
over her face a look which set him wondering on 


The Wharf by the Docks. 129 


whose countenance he had seen it before. In an 
instant it was gone, leaving a look of weariness be- 
hind. But it set him wondering. Who was she ? 
Who were the mysterious parents of whom she 
knew nothing? 

Carrie glanced at the door which led into the out- 
house. The tapping of a stick on the stone-flagged 
floor announced the approach of ‘‘ Granny ” at last. 
The girl ran to open the door. 

Max had sprung up from his chair, full of curios- 
ity to see the old lady of whom Carrie seemed to 
be some^what in awe. . 

He was rather disappointed. There was nothing 
at all formidable or dignifled about Mrs. Higgs, 
who was a round-shouldered, infirm old woman in 
a brown dress, a black-and-white check shawl, and 
a rusty black bonnet. 

She stopped short on seeing Max, and proceeded, 
still standing in the doorway, to scrutinize with 
candid interest every detail of his appearance. 
When she had satisfied herself, she waved her stick 
as an intimation to him that he could sit down 
again, and, leaning on the arm of the young girl, 
crossed the room, still without a word, and took her 
seat in the one arm-chair- 

As Carrie had said, there was nothing singular or 
marked about her face or figure by which one could 


130 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


have distinguished her from the general run of old 
women of her modest but apparently respectable 
class. A little thin, whitish hair, parted in the mid- 
dle, showed under her bonnet ; her eyes, of the 
faded no-color of the old, stared unintelligently out 
of her hard, wrinkled face ; her long, straight, 
hairy chin, rather hooked nose and thin-lipped 
mouth made an ensemble which suggested a harm- 
less, tedious old lady who could “ nag ” when she 
was not pleased. 

Conversation was not her strong point, evidently, 
or, perhaps, the presence pf a stranger made her 
shy. For, to all Carrie’s remarks and inquiries, 
she vouchsafed only nods in reply, or the short- 
est of answers in a gruff voice and an ungracious 
tone. 

“ Who is he ?” she asked at last, when she had 
begun to sip her cup of tea. 

She did not even condescend to look at Max as 
she made the inquiry. 

“ A gentleman. Granny — the gentleman I told you 
of, who came in with me because I was afraid to 
come in by myself.” 

“But what ’s he doing here now? You’re not 
by yourself now.” 

Max himself could hardly help laughing at this 
question and comment. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


131 


“ I thought I ought to explain to you my appear- 
ance here,” said he, modestly. 

“ Very well, then ; you can go as soon as you 
like.” 

“ Granny !” protested the girl in a whisper ; 
“ don’t be rude to him. Granny. He ’s been very 
kind.” 

“ Kind ! I dare say !” 

Max thought it was time to go, and he rose and 
stood ready to make a little speech. At that moment 
there was a noise in the outhouse, and both Mrs. 
Higgs and Carrie seemed suddenly to lose their 
interest in him, and to direct their attention to the 
door. 

Then Mrs. Higgs made a sign to Carrie, who 
went out of the room and into the outhouse. As 
Max turned to watch her, the light went out. 

By this time Carrie had shut the door behind her, 
and Max was, as he supposed, alone with the old 
woman. He was startled, and he made an attempt 
to find the door leading into the outhouse and to 
follow the girl ; but this was not so easy. 

While he was fumbling for the door, he found 
himself suddenly seized in a strong grip, and, taken 
unawayes, he was unable to cope with an assailant 
so dexterous, so rapid in his movements, that, 
before Max had time to do more than realize that 


11,2 The Wharf by. the Docks, 


he was attacked, he was forced through an open 
doorway and flung violently to the ground. 

Then a door was slammed, and there was silence. 

As Max scrambled to his feet his hand touched 
something clammy and cold.- 

It was a hand — a dead hand. 

Max uttered a cry of horror. He remembered 
all that he had forgotten. He knew now that the 
girl’s story was true, and that he was shut in the 
front room with the body of the murdered man. 


CHAPTER XL 

A TRAP. 

Max tried to find the door by which he had been 
thrown into the room. The upper portion was of 
glass, he supposed, remembering the red curtain 
which hung on the other side of it. But although 
he felt with his hands in the place where he sup- 
posed the door to be, he found nothing but wooden 
shelves, such as are usually found lining the walls 
of shops, and planks of rough wood. 

He paused, looked around him, hoping that when 
his eyes got used to the darkness some faint ray of 
light coming either through the boarded-up front 
or through the glass upper half of the door, would 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


133 


enable him to take his bearings, or, at any rate, to 
help him avoid that uncanny “ something ” in the 
middle of the floor. 

But the blackness was absolute. Strain his eyes 
as he might, there was no glimmer of light in any 
direction to guide him, and he had used up his last 
match. So he. went to work again with his hands. 
These rough planks were placed perpendicularly 
against the wall to a width of about three feet — 
the width of the door. Passing his fingers 
slowly all round them, he ascertained that they 
reached to the floor, and to a height of about seven 
feet above it. Evidently, thought he, it was the 
door itself which opened into the shop which had 
been carefully boarded up. As soon as he felt sure 
of this, he dealt at the planks a tremendous blow 
with his fist. He hurt his hand, but did no appar- 
ent injury to the door, which scarcely shook. Then 
he tried to tear one of the boards away from the 
framework to which it was attached, but without 
result. The nails which had been used to fasten 
it were of the strongest make, and had been well 
driven in. 

Foiled in his attempt to get out of the room by 
the way he had come. Max moved slowly to the 
left, and at the distance of only a couple of feet from 
the door found the angle of the wall, and began to 


134 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


creep along, still feeling with hands and feet most 
carefully, in the direction of the front of the shop. 

This side of the room presented no obstacles. 
The wall-paper was torn here and there ; the 
plaster fell down in some places at his touch. A 
board shook a little under his tread when he had 
taken a few paces, but at the next step he made the 
floor seemed firm enough. 

On turning the next angle in the wall he came to 
the shop door — the one leading into the stone pas- 
sage outside. Here he made another attempt to 
force an exit, but it was boarded up as securely as 
the inner one, and the window, which was beside it, 
was in the same condition. 

It by no means increased the confidence of Max 
as to his own safety to observe what elaborate pre- 
cautions had been used by the occupants of the 
house to secure themselves from observation. He 
could no longer doubt that he was in a house which 
was the resort of persons of the worst possible 
character, and in a position of the gravest danger. 

While opposite the window, he listened eagerly 
for some sound in the passage outside. If a foot- 
passenger should pass, he would risk everything 
and shout for help with all the force of his lungs. 

Even while he indulged this hope, he felt that it 
was a vain one. It was now late ; traffic on the 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


135 


river had almost ceased ; there was no attraction 
for idlers on the landing-stage in the cold and the 
darkness. 

He continued his investigations. 

At the next angle in the wall he came to more 
shelves, decayed, broken, left by the last tenant as 
not worth carrying away. And presently his feet 
came upon something harder, colder than the 
boards ; it was a hearthstone, and it marked the 
place where, before the room was turned into a 
shop, there had been a small fireplace. And on the 
other side of this, near the wall, was a collection of 
rubbish, over the musty items of which Max 
stumbled as he went. Old boxes, bits of carpet, 
broken bricks ; every sort of worthless lumber. 

And so, withoflt accident, without incident, with- 
out hearing a sound but the faint noise of his own 
movements. Max got back to the point where he 
had started. 

Then he paused and listened at the inner door. 

In spite of everything, he refused to yield to the 
suggestion that Carrie had anything to do with his 
incarceration. Would she not, on finding that he 
had disappeared, make an effort to get him out ? 

While he was standing between doubt and hope, 
on the alert for any sound on the other side which 
should suggest the presence of the girl herself and 


136 The Wharf by the Docks. 

give him the cue to knock at the door again, his at- 
tention was attracted by a slight noise which 
thrilled him to the marrow ; for it came, not from 
outside, but from some part of the room itself, in 
which he had supposed himself to be alone with 
the dead body of a man. 

Instantly he put his back to the door and pre- 
pared to stand on the defensive against the ex- 
pected attack of an invisible assailant. 

That was the awful part of it, that he could not 
see. For a moment be thought of creeping back 
to the rubbish heap in the corner and trying to find, 
amongst the odds and ends lying there, some sort 
of weapon of defense. But a moment’s reflection 
told him that the act of stooping, of searching, 
would put him more at the me^y of an assailant 
than ever. There was absolutely nothing to do but 
to wait and to listen. 

And the noise he heard was like the drawing of 
a log of wood slowly along the floor. This was fol- 
lowed by a dull sound, like the falling of a log to 
the earth. 

And then there followed two sounds which made 
his flesh creep : The first was the creaking and 
cracking of wooden boards, and the second was a 
slow, sliding noise, which lasted, intermittently, for 
what seemed an hour. 


The "Wharf by the Docks. 


137 


When the latter noise ceased something fell 
heavily to the ground. That was a sound there was 
no mistaking, and then the .creaking went on for 
what seemed a long time, and ceased suddenly in 
its turn. 

And then, again, there was dead silence, dead 
stillness. 

By this time Max was as cold as ice, and wet from 
head to foot with the sweat of a sick terror. What 
the sounds meant, whence they«proceeded, he could 
not tell, but the horror they produced in him was 
unspeakable, never to be forgotten. 

He did not move for along time after the sounds 
had ceased. He wanted to shout, to batter with his 
fists on the doors, the window. But a hideous 
paralysis of fear seemed to have taken possession of 
him and benumbed his limbs and his tongue. 

Max was no coward. He was a daring rider, 
handy with his fists, a young man full of spirit and 
courage to the verge of recklessness, as this adven- 
ture had proved. But courage must have some- 
thing to attack, or at least to resist, before it can 
make itself manifest ; and in this sickening waiting, 
listening, watching, without the use bf one’s eyes, 
there was something which smacked of the super- 
natural, something to damp the spirits of the 
bravest man. 


138 The Wharf by the Docks. 


There was nothing to be gained, there was, per- 
haps, much to be risked, by a movement, a step. 
So Max felt, showing thereby that he possessed an 
instinct of sane prudence which was, in the circum- 
stances, better than bravery. 

And presently he discerned a little patch of faint 
light on the floor, which gradually increased in size 
until he was able to make out that it was thrown 
from above, and from the corner above the rubbish 
heap. ' 

Max kept quite still. The relief he felt was ex- 
quisite. If once he could have a chance of seeing 
the man who was in the room with him, and who 
he could not doubt was the person who had thrown 
him in. Max felt he should be all right. In a tussle 
with another man he knew that he could hold his 
own, and a sight of the ruffian would enable him 
to judge whether bribery or force would be the 
better weapon with him. 

In the meantime he watched the light with 
anxious eyes, determined not to move and risk its 
extinction until he had been able to examine every 
corner of the little shop. 

And as he looked, his eyes grew round, and his 
breath came fast. 

There was no counter left, no furniture at all be- 
hind which a man could hide. And the room, ex- 


The Wharf by the Doc^s. 


39 


cept for the rubbish in the corner, a small, strag- 
gling heap, was absolutely bare. 

There was no other creature in it, dead or alive, 
but himself. 


CHAPTER XII. 

ESCAPE. 

An exclamation, impossible to repress, burst from 
the lips of Max. 

At the same moment he made a spring to the 
left, which brought him under the spot in the floor 
above through which the light was streaming. 

And he saw through a raised trap-door in the 
flooring above the shrewish face of old Mrs. Higgs, 
and the very same candle in the very same tin 
candlestick that he had seen in use in the adjoin- 
ing room. 

The old woman and the young man stared at 
each other for a moment in silence. It seemed to 
Max that there was genuine surprise on her face as 
she looked at him. 

“ Well, I never !” exclaimed she, as she lowered 
the candle through the hole, and looked, not only at 


140 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


him, but into every corner of the shop. “ Well, I 
never ! How did you get in there, eh ?” 

Max was angry and sullen. How could he doubt 
that she knew more about it than he did ! On the 
other hand, he was not in a position to be as rude 
as he felt inclined to be. 

“You know all about that, I expect,” said he, 
shortly. 

“ I ? How should I know anything about it ? I 
only know that I lost sight of you very quickly, 
and couldn’t make out where you ’d got to.” 

• “ Well, you know now,” said Max, shortly, “ and 
perhaps you ’ll be kind enough to let me out.” 

In spite of himself his voice shook. As the old 
woman still hesitated, he measured with his eye the 
distance between the floor where he stood and the 
open trap-door above. It was too far for a spring. 
Mrs. Higgs seemed to divine his thoughts, and she 
laughed grimly. 

“ All right,” said she. “ All right. I ’ll come 
down. I wonder who cam have put you in there 
now ! It ’s one of those young rascals from over 
the way, I expect. They are always up to some- 
thing. Don’t you worry yourself ; I ’m coming !” 

Her tone had become so reassuring that Max 
began to wonder whether the old woman might not 
be more innocent of the trick which had been 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


141 


played upon him than he had supposed. This im- 
pression increased when Mrs. Higgs went on : 

“ Why didn’t you holloa out when you found 
yourself inside ?” 

“ It wouldn’t have been of much use,” retorted 
Max. I thumped on the door and made noise 
enough to wake the city.” 

“ Well, I thought I heard a knock, some time 
ago,” said Mrs. Higgs, who seemed still in no hurry 
to fulfill her promise of coming down. “ But I 
thought it was nothing of any consequence, as I 
didn’t hear it again.” 

“ Where were you then ?” To himself he added : 
“ You old fool !” 

“ Eh ?” said Mrs. Higgs. 

Max repeated the question. 

“ Well, first I was downstairs, and then I came 
up here.” 

At last Max saw in the old woman’s lackluster 
eyes a spark of malice. 

You ’re coming to open the door now ?” asked 
he. 

All right,” said she. 

Down went the trap-door, and the light and the 
old woman disappeared together. Max wished he 
had asked for a candle, although he doubted whether 
his request would have been complied with. 


142 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


And at the end of another five minutes, which 
seemed like hours, he began to have other and 
graver doubts. He had gone back to his former 
place near the door, and he stood waiting, with 
more and more eagerness, more and more anxiety, 
for the promised appearance of Mrs. Higgs. 

Surely, slow as her steps might be, she could have 
got down by this time. 

He grew restless, uneasy. The old suspicions — 
which her appearance and the artful simplicity of 
her manner had allayed — rose up in his mind with 
fresh vigor. And, to add to his anxiety, he suddenly 
remembered the pretext Carrie had given to try to 
get him into the front room. 

She had told him there were things of hers in 
there which she wanted. He had believed her, at 
least, implicitly. But now he knew that her pre- 
text was a lie. She also, therefore, had been an 
accomplice in the plot to get him into this room. 

As this thought came into his mind, he heard 
again the creaking of the boards, and this time it 
was accompanied by another sound, faint, intermit- 
tent, but unmistakable — the sound ot the splashing 
of water close to his feet. 

Turning quickly to the door, he raised his fist 
and brought it upon the boards with a sounding 
crash ; at the same time he shouted for “ Help !” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 143 

with all the strength of his lungs. He repeated the 
blow, the cry, 

Again he heard, when he paused to listen, the 
faint splashing of the water, the creaking of the 
boards behind him. Then, just as he raised his 
hand for one more blow on the door, he felt it open 
a very little, pushing him back. 

And at the .satne moment a voice whispered : 

“ ’Sh-sh !” 

Very gradually the door was opened a little 
farther. A hand caught the sleeve of his coat. It 
was quite dark outside the door — as dark as in the 
front room. 

“ ’Sh-sh !” was whispersd again in his ear, as he 
felt himself drawn through the narrow aperture. 

He made no attempt to resist, for he knew, he 
felt, that the hand was Carrie’s, and that this was 
rescue. 

When he had passed into the second room. Max 
was stopped by a warning pressure of the hand 
upon his arm, and then he felt the touch of Carrie’s 
lips upon his ear, so close did she come before she 
uttered these words : 

“ Don’t make a sound. Come slowly, very quietly, 
very carefully. You ’re all right.” 

He heard her close the door through which he 
had just come, and then he let her lead him, in 


144 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


silence and in the darkness, until they reached 
another door. This she opened with the same 
caution, and Max, passing through with her, found 
himself, as he knew by the little step down onto 
the brick floor, in the outhouse. 

“ Who ’s that?” said a man’s voice, startling Max, 
and confirming in an instant the suspicions he had 
had that the outrage to which he had been sub- 
jected was the work of a gang. 

“ It ’s me — Carrie,” said the girl. 

And opening the outer door, she drove Max out 
with a gentle push, and closed it between herself 
and him. 

“ Thank God !” was his first muttered exclama- 
tion, as he felt the welcome rush of cold night air 
and felt himself free again. 

But the very next moment he turned back in- 
stinctively to the door and attempted to push it 
open. The latch was gone ; he had broken it 
himself. But the door was now locked against 
him. 

Of C9urse, this circumstance greatly increased 
the desire he had for one more interview, however 
short, with Carrie. He wanted to understand her 
position. Too much interested in the girl to wish 
to doubt her, grateful to her for contriving his 
escape, Max yet found it difficult to reconcile her 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


H5 


actions with the honesty her words had caused him 
to believe in. 

However, finding that the door was inexorably 
closed upon him, he saw that there was nothing for 
it but to take himself off into safer if less interesting 
regions as quickly as possible. So he got out on 
the wharf, through and over the timber, and was 
on the point of crossing to the door in the fence, 
when he saw a man come quickly through, lock the 
door behind him and make his way through the 
piles of timber with the easy, stealthy step of a 
man accustomed to do this sort of thing, and to do 
it at night. 

Before the man got near him. Max, who had 
stepped back a little under the wall of one of the 
outhouses, was sure that the newcomer was of 
doubtful character. When the latter got out into 
the light thrown by the street-lamp outside the 
wharf, this impression was confirmed. 

A little man, young, of slight and active build, 
with a fair mustache, blue eyes and curly, light 
hair, he was undoubtedly good-looking, although 
there was something mean and sinister about the 
expression of his face. Max could scarcely see all 
these details ; but, as it was, he made out enough 
for him to experience an idiotic pang of something 
like jealousy, as he made up his mind on the instant 


146 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


that the object of the young man’s visit was to see 
Carrie. 

The visitor wore a light overcoat, and had a cer- 
tain look of being well off, or, at least, well dressed. 

And, suspicion getting the upper hand again, 
the thought darted through the mind of Max that 
it was strange to find so many persons — this was 
the third of whom he had knowledge — hovering 
about the shut-up house, when Carrie had repre- 
sented herself to 'have been alone for two whole 
days. 

Against his better judgment. Max followed the 
newcomer, step by step, at a safe distance, and 
raised himself on the timber in such a way as to be 
able to watch what followed. 

The man in the light coat made his way with 
surprising neatness and celerity over the timber to 
the door of the outhouse, at which he gave two 
short knocks, a pause, and then two more. 

After waiting for a few moments, the man re- 
peated this signal, more loudly than before. 

And then the door opened, and Max heard the 
voice of Carrie, though it was too dark for him to 
see her at that distance. 

“ You, Dick? Come in.” 

And the young man, without answering, availed 
himself of the invitation ; and the door was shut. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


H7 


Max stared down at the closed door in perplexity 
and dismay. In spite of all his adventures in that 
very doubtful house, or, perhaps, because of them, 
his interest in Carrie, of the blue eyes and the won- 
derful voice, was as strong as ever. Hovering be- 
tween trust and mistrust, he told himself at this 
point that she was nothing in the world but the 
thieves’ decoy he had at first suspected. But in 
that case, why had he himself not been robbed ? 
He wore a valuable watch ; -he had gold and notes 
in his purse. And no attempt had been made to 
relieve him of either the one or the other. 

And the foolish fellow began to consider and to 
weigh one thing with the other, and to become 
more and more eager to see the girl again if it were 
only to upbraid her for her deceit, until he ended 
by slipping down to the ground, going boldly to the 
door of the outhouse, and giving two knocks, a 
pause, and two knocks more. 

As he had expected, Carrie herself, after an 
interval of only a few seconds, opened the 
door. 

There was a little light in the outhouse, and none 
outside ; and Max, having taken a couple of steps 
to the left, she at first saw nobody. So she made a 
step forward. Max instantly put himself between 
her and the door. 


148 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


On recognizing him, Carrie started, but uttered 
no sound, no word. 

“ I want to speak to you,” said Max, in a low 
voice. 

But all her boldness of their first interview, her 
coquetry of the second, her quiet caution of the 
third had disappeared. She was now frightened, 
shy, anxious to get away. 

“Oh, why did you come back? Why did you 
come back? Go away at once and never come here 
again. Haven’t you got a lesson ?” 

Her voice broke ; her anxiety was visible. Max 
was touched, more interested than ever. 

“ I can’t go away,” he whispered back, “ until I 
have spoken to you about something which is very 
serious. Can’t you come out on the wharf, some- 
where where we can talk without anybody over- 
hearing?” 

“ Oh, no, oh, no. I must go in. And you must 
go. Are you a fool,'' and she stamped her foot with 
sudden impatience, “ to be so persistent ?” 

“ A fool ?” echoed Max, half to himself. “ By 
Jove, I think I am. Look here,” and he bent down 
so that he might whisper very close to her ear ; “ I 
must set the police on this place, you know ; but I 
want you to get away out of it first,” 

She listened in silence. She waited for him to 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


149 


say more. But he was waiting on his side for the 
protests he expected. At last she laughed to her- 
self derisively. 

“All right/' said she. “Set the police on us by 
all means. Oh, do — do ! But — just mention first 
to your friend, Mr. Horne, that that 's what you 're 
going to do. Just mention it to him, and see the 
thanks you '11 get for your trouble !” 

These words came upon Max with a great shock. 
In the excitement of his own adventures in this 
place, he had quite forgotten his friend, Dudley 
Horne, and the errand which had first brought him 
into the neighborhood. He had forgotten, also, 
what he had from the first only half believed — the 
girl’s words connecting Dudley with a murder com- 
mitted within those walls. 

Now that the remembrance was thus abruptly 
brought back to him,, he felt as if he wanted to 
gasp for breath. Carrie watched him, and pres- 
ently made a sign to him to follow her. Scrambling 
out to the open space on the wharf, she made for 
the spot close to the water where Max had stood to 
watch the man whom Carrie had called “ Dick.” 

When Max came up to her, the girl was standing 
close under the eaves of the outhouse on the bank, 
leaning against the wall. He could scarcely see 
anything of her face in the darkness, but he was 


^50 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


struck by something strangely moving in the tones 
of her voice as she broke the silence. 

“ Look here,” she said, “ I want you to, make me 
a promise. Come, it ought not to be difficult ; for 
I got you out of a nice mess ; remember that. 
You ’ve got to give me your word that you will say 
nothing about your adventures to-day, either to the 
police or to anybody else.” 

“ I can’t promise that. And why on earth do you 
want me to do so ? Surely you can have no real 
sympathy with the people who do the things that 
are done in there — ” 

Carrie interrupted him, breaking in upon him 
abruptly : 

“ What things ?” 

"‘Murders, and — ” 

“ The murder was done by your friend, not by 
us.” 

“ ‘ Us ?’ Surely you don’t identify yourself with 
these people ?” 

“ I do. They are my friends — the only friends I 
have.” 

“ But they are thieves, blackmailers !” said Max, 
saying not what he knew but what he guessed. 

“ What have they stolen from you? What harm 
have they done to you or anybody that you know 
of? All this is because my Granny didn’t approve 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


151 


of my having a stranger in, and had you shut into 
a dark room to give you a fright.” 

“ But you forget you* said just now you had got 
me out of a nice mess.” 

“ I — I meant that you were frightened.” 

“ And with good reason. After what I saw and 
heard in that room, I should be worse than a 
criminal myself if I didn’t inform the police about 
the existence of the place. I believe it ’s one of 
the vilest dens in London.” 

Carrie was silent. She did not attempt to ask 
him what it was that he had heard and seen while 
in that room. And Max felt his heart sink within 
him. He would have had her question, protest, 
deny. And instead she seemed tacitly to take the 
truth of all his accusations for granted. 

“ Don’t you see,” he presently went on' almost in 
a coaxing tone, ‘‘ that it ’s for your own good that 
you should have to go away ? I won’t believe — I 
can’t — that you like this underground, hole-and- 
corner existence, this life that is dishonest all 
through. Come, now, confess that you don’t like 
it — that you only live like this because you can’t 
help it, or because you think you can’t help it — and 
I ’ll forgive you.” 

There was a long pause. Then he heard a little, 
hard, cynical laugh. He tried hard to see her face ; 


152 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


but although he caught now and then a gleam of 
the great eyes, the wonderful eyes that had fas- 
cinated him, he could not distinguish the expres- 
sion, hardly even the outline of her features. 

When she at last spoke, it was in a reckless, will- 
ful tone. 

“ Forgive me ! What have you to forgive, except 
that I was fool enough to ask you into the house ? 
And if you ’ve suffered for that, it seems I shall have 
to, too, in the long run ; and I ’m not going to say 
I don’t like the life, for I like it better than any 
I ’ve lived before.*’ 

“ What !” 

“Yes, yes, I tell you. I ’m not a heroine, ready 
to drudge away my life in any round of dull work 
that’ll keep body and soul together. I’d rather 
have the excitement of living what you call a hole- 
and-corner life than spend my days stitch — stitch — 
stitching — dust — dust — dusting, as I used to have to 
do with Miss Aldridge, as I should have to do if I 
went away from here.” 

“ Well, but there are other things you could do,” 
pleaded Max, with vague thoughts of setting his 
own sisters to work to find this erratic child of the 
riverside some more seemly mode of life than her 
present one. 

“ What other things ?” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


153 


“ Why, you could — you could teach in a school or 
in a farnily.” 

“ No, I couldn’t. I don’t know enough. And 
I wouldn’t like it, either. And I should have to 
leave Granny, who wants me, and is fond of 
me — ” 

'‘And Dick !” burst out Max, spitefully. “You 
would have to give up the society of Dick.’’ 

It was possible, even in the darkness, to perceive 
that this remark startled Carrie. She said, in 
astonishment which she could not hide : 

“ And what do you know about Dick ?” 

“ I know that you wouldn’t care for a life that is 
repugnant to every notion of decency, if it were 
not for Dick,” retorted Max, with rash warmth. 

Carrie laughed again. 

“ I ’m afraid you got your information from the 
wrong quarter,” said she, quietly. “ Not from Dick 
himself, that’s certain.” 

There was some relief to Max in this confident 
assertion, but not much. Judging Dick by his own 
feelings, he was sure that person had not reached 
the stage of intimacy at which Carrie called him 
by his Christian name without hankering after 
further marks of her favor. 

“ He is fond of you, of course !” said Max, feel- 
ing that he had no right to say this, but justifying 


154 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


it to himself on the ground of his wish to help her 
out of her wretched position. 

"'Well, I suppose he is.’' 

“ Are you — of course I 've no right to ask — but 
are you fond of him?” 

Carrie shook her head with, indifference. 

“ I like him in my way,” said she. “ Not in his 
way. There’ s a great difference.” 

And do you like any man — in his way ?” 

The girl replied with a significant gesture of dis- 
gust, which had in it nothing of coquetry, nothing 
of affectation. 

% 

“ No,” said she, shortly. 

“ Why do you answer like that ?” 

“ Why ? Oh, well, if you knew all that I ’ve seen, 
you wouldn’t wonder, you wouldn’t want to ask.” 

“You won’t always feel like that. You won’t, 
when you have got away from this hole, and are 
living among decent people.” 

“ The ‘ decent people ’ are those who leave me 
alone,” said Carrie, shortly, “ as they do here.” 

“ As who do here ? Who are the people who live 
in that shut-up house, besides you and your 
Granny, as you call her ?” 

“ I — mustn’t tell you. They don’t belong to any 
county families. Is that enough ?” 

“ Why are you so different now from what you 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


155 


were when we were sitting by the fire in there ? 
You are not like the same girl ! Are you the same 
girl?” 

And Max affected to feel, or, perhaps, really felt, 
a doubt which necessitated his coming a little closer 
to Carrie, without, however, being able to see much 
more of her face than before. 

“ I ’m the same girl,” replied Carrie, shortly, 
“ whom you threatened with the police.” 

“ Come, is that fair? Did I threaten you with the 
police ?” 

“ You threatened us. It ’s the same thing. Well, 
it doesn’t matter. They won’t find out anything 
more than we choose !” 

She said this defiantly, ostentatiously throwing 
in her lot with the dubious characters from whom 
Max would fain have dissociated her. 

“ Do you forget,” he asked, suddenly, “ that these 
precious friends of yours left you, forgot you, for 
two whole days — left you to the company of a dead 
man, to a chance stranger ? Is that what you call 
kindness — friendship — affection ?” • 

She made no answer. 

A moment later a voice was heard calling softly : 
“ Carrie ?” 

The girl came out of the shelter of the eaves, 
and Max at last caught sight of her face. It was 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


156 


sad, pale, altogether different from what the reck- 
less, defiant, rather hard tones of her latest words 
would have led him to expect. A haunting face. 
Max thought. 

“ I must go,” said she. “ Good-bye.” 

Carrie !” repeated the voice, calling again, im- 
patiently. 

Max knew, although he could not see the owner 
of the voice, that it was “ Dick.” It was, he thought, 
a coarse voice, full of intimations of the swagger- 
ing self-assertion of the low-class Londoner, who 
thinks himself the whole world’s superior. 

Carrie called out : 

“All right; I ’m coming !” And then she turned 
to Max. “You are to forget this place, and me,” 
said she, in a whisper. 

The next moment Max found himself alone. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


157 


CHAPTER XIIL 

THE SEQUEL TO A TRAGEDY. 

It was on the evening after that of his expedition 
to Limehouse that Max Wedmore found himself 
back again at the modest iron gate of the park at 
The Beeches. He had not sent word what time he 
should arrive, preferring not to have to meet Doreen 
by herself, with her inevitable questions, sooner 
than he could help. 

As he shut the gate behind him, and hurried up 
the drive toward the house, he felt a new signifi- 
cance in the words “ Home, Sweet Home,” and 
shuddered at the recollection that he had, in the 
thirty odd hours since he left it, given up the hope 
of ever seeing it again. 

It was a little difficult, though, on this prosaic 
home-coming, to realize all he had passed through 
since he last saw the red house, with its long, dig- 
nified front, its triangular pediment rising up 
against the dark-blue night sky, and the group of 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


158 

rambling outbuildings, stables, laundries, barns, all 
built with a magnificent disregard of the value of 
space, which straggled away indefinitely to the 
right, in a grove of big trees and a tangle of brush- 
wood. 

Lines of bright light streaming between drawn 
window curtains showed bright patches on the lawn 
and the shrubs near the house. As Max passed 
through the iron gate which shut in the garden 
from the park, a group of men and boys, shouting, 
encouraging one another with uncouth cries, rushed 
out from the stable yard toward the front of the 
house. 

“ What’s the matter ?” asked Max of a stable boy, 
whom he seized by the shoulders and stopped in 
the act of uttering a wild whoop. 

“ It ’s the log, sir,” replied the lad, sobered by the 
sudden appearance of the young master, who 
seemed in no hilarious mood. 

“ The log ! What log ?” 

“ Master has ordered one for Christmas, sir, the 
biggest as could be got,” answered the boy, who 
then escaped, to rush back and join the shouting 
throng. 

And Max remembered that his father, in his 
passionate determination to have a real old English 
Christmas, with everything done in the proper 


The Wharf by the Docks, 159 

manner, had given this order to the head gardener 
a few days before. 

By this time the group had become a crowd. A 
swarm of men and boys, conspicuous among whom 
were all the idlers and vagabonds of the neighbor- 
hood, came along through the yard in one great, 
overwhelming wave, hooting, yelling, trampling 
down the flower-beds with their winter covering of 
cocoanut fiber, breaking down the shrubs, tearing 
away the ivy, and spreading devastation as they 
went. 

Poor Mr. Wedmore had instructed his servants 
not to prevent the villagers from joining in the pro- 
cession. There was something reminiscent of 
feudal times, a pleasant suggestion of the cordial 
relation between the lord of the manor of the Mid- 
dle Ages and his tenants and dependents, in this 
procession of the Yule log up to the great house. 
And Mr. Wedmore, full of his fancy for the grand 
old mediaeval Christmas festivities, hugged to his 
heart the thought of holding such revels as should 
make Christmas at The Beeches an institution in 
the countryside. 

But, alas ! the London merchant had become a 
country gentleman too late in life to appreciate the 
great gulf which lies between the sixteenth-century 
peasant (of the modern imagination) and the nine- 


i6o 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


teenth-centur)'- villager of actual fact. His own 
small army from the stable and the garden were 
powerless to cope with the disorderly mob they had 
been encouraged to invite in this interesting cele- 
bration. And those most mischievous and con- 
spicuous roughs whom the coachman had driven 
off with the whip on the way up, revenged them- 
selves for this drastic treatment by coming in 
through the front gate of the park, breaking down 
the fence between park and garden, and every ob- 
stacle to their barbaric progress. 

It was “ Poaching Wilson ” who pulled the bell, 
after some difficulty in finding the handle, owing 
to the liberality with which he had “ treated him- 
self ” as a preparation for the journey. 

Max, alarmed at the invasion, had made his way 
» round to the billiard-room door at the back, bolted 
it on the inside, and hastened to give directions to 
the servants to lock all the other doors, and to se- 
cure the ground-floor windows. 

Then he rushed into the hall, just as his father 
had come out from the dining-room, serviette in 
hand, to learn the cause of the noise outside. 

“ Hello, Max ! Is it you back again ? And have 
you brought down half the population of London 
with you ?” 

“ No, sir, they didn’t come with me. They are 


The Wharf by the Docks. i6i 

guests of yours, I understand. And they expect to 
be treated to unlimited beer, so I gather from their 
remarks. They Ve brought some firewood, I be- 
lieve.’' 

At this moment the clanging of the front-door 
bell resounded through the house for the second 
time. The frightened butler, who was- a young 
man and rather nervous, stood by the door, not 
daring to open it. The ladies of the household had 
by this time come out of the dining-room ; Mrs. 
Wedmore looked flush and frightened ; the girls 
were tittering. Smothered explosions of laughter 
came from time to time to the ears of the master of 
the house, from the closed door which led to the 
servants’ hall. 

“ Shall — shall I see who it is, sir ?” asked the 
butler, who could hear the epithets applied to him 
on the other side of the door. 

“ No, no !” cried Doreen. “ Not on any account ! 
Tell them to put the thing down and go away.” 

There was a pause, during which the bell rang 
again, and there was a violent lunge at the 
door. 

“ They won’t — they won’t go away, Miss, without 
they get something first,” said the butler, who was 
as white as a sheet. 

‘‘ Tell them,” began Mr. Wedmore, in a loud tone 


i 62 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


of easy confidence, “ to take it round to the back 
door, and — and to send a — deputation to me in the 
morning ; when — er — they shall be properly re- 
warded for their trouble.” 

“ They ought to reward us for our trouble, papa, 
don’t you think ?” suggested Doreen. 

“ There ! They ’ve begun to reward themselves,” 
said Queenie, as a stone came through one of the 
windows. 

Mr. Wedmore was furious. He saw the mistake 
he had made, but he would not own it. Putting 
strong constraint upon himself, he assumed a gay 
geniality of manner which his looks belied, and 
boldly advanced to the door. But Mrs. Wedmore 
flung her arms round her husband in a capacious 
embrace, dragging him backward with an energy 
there was no use resisting. 

“ No, no, no, George ! I won’t have you expose 
yourself to those horrid roughs ! Don’t open the 
door, Bartram ! Put up the bolt !” 

“ Nonsense ! Nonsence, my dear !” retorted Mr. 
Wedmore, who was, perhaps, not so unwilling to be 
saved from the howling mob as he wished to ap- 
pear. “ It ’s only good-humored fun — of a rough 
sort, perhaps, but quite harmless. It ’s some mis- 
chievous boy who threw the stone. But, of course, 
they must go round to the back.” 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


163 


“Cook won’t dare to open the door to ’em, sir,” 
said the butler. 

The situation was becoming serious. There was 
no denying that the house was besieged. Mrs. 
Wedmore began to feel like a chatelaine of the 
Cavalier party, with the Roundhead army at the 
doors clamoring for her husband’s blood. The cries 
of the villagers were becoming more derisive. 

As a happy thought, Mrs. Wedmore suggested 
haranguing the mob from an upper window. This 
course seemed rather ignominious, but prudence de- 
cided in its favor. 

There was a rush upstairs, and Mr. Wedmore, 
followed by all the ladies, flung ‘himself into the 
bathroom and threw up the window. 

It was not at all the sort of thing that merry 
squire of the olden times might have been expected 
to do. In fact, as Doreen remarked, there were no 
bathrooms in the olden time to harangue a mob 
from. But Mr. Wedmore ’s mediaeval ardor being 
damped, he submitted to circumstances with forti- 
tude. 

“ Yah ! There 'e is at last !” “ ’Ow are you, old 

un ?” “ Don’t put your nose out too fur this cold 

night !” 

These and similar ribald remarks greeted Mr. 
Y/’edmore as he appeared at the window, telling hirn 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


1 64 


only too plainly that the merry days of old were 
gone, never to be restored, and that the feudal 
feeling which bound (or is supposed to have bound) 
rich and poor, gentle and simple, in one great tie 
of brotherhood had disappeared forever. 

Doreen and Queenie were secretly enjoying the 
fun, though they had the sense to be very quiet ; 
but Mrs. Wedmore was in an agony of sympathy 
with her husband, and of fear for the results of his 
enterprise. He began a speech of thanks, but the 
noise below was too great for him to be heard. In- 
deed, it was his own servants who did the most 
toward drowning his voice by their well-meant en- 
deavors to shout down the interrupting cries. 

‘‘ They ’re most of them tipsy, I think,” whispered 
Doreen to her mother, who said, “ Sh-sh !” in 
shocked remonstrance, but secretly agreed with her 
daughter’s verdict. 

“ Throw them some coppers, papa,” suggested the 
sage and practical Queenie. 

Mr. Wedmore turned out his pockets, taking care 
to disperse his largesse as widely as possible. The 
girls helped him, hunting high and low for coins, 
among which, urged by the crowd in no subdued 
voice to “ come down handsome,” sixpences and 
shillings presently made their welcome appearance. 

“ Oh, the hollies !” whispered Doreen to her sister. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 165 

Thank goodness, the look of the garden to-morrow 
morning will be an object-lesson to papa !” 

For the invaders, well aware of the value of such 
wares at Christmas time, filled out the pauses by 
slashing at the berry -bearing trees with their pocket- 
knives, secure in the safety of numbers. 

By the time the shower of money ceased the 
crowd had begun to thin ; those members of it who 
had been lucky enough to secure silver coins had 
made off in the direction of the nearest public- 
house, and those who had cut down the holly had 
taken themselves off with their booty. 

There remained in front of the door, when this 
clearance had been effected, the Yule log itself, the 
laborers who had drawn it along and a group of 
manageable size. 

Max, who had been watching the proceedings 
from the study, after turning out the light, judged 
that the moment had come for negotiations to com- 
mence. So he told the butler to throw open the 
front door, and he himself invited the unwelcome 
guests to enter. He had taken the precaution to 
have all portable articles removed from the hall 
and all the doors locked except that which led to 
the servants’ hall and the staircases. 

In they came, a little subdued, and with their 
first disastrous energy sufficiently exhausted for 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


1 66 


them to be able to listen and to do as they were 
told. 

The oaken center-table had been pushed on one 
side, and there was a clear space, wide, carpetless, 
from the front door to the big stone fireplace op- 
posite. 

“This way with the log! Now, boys, pull with 
a will !” cried Max, not insensible to the novelty 
and picturesqueness of the situation, as a motley 
crowd, some in smock-frocks, some in corduroy and 
some in gaiters and great-coats, pressed into the 
great hall dragging the log after them with many a 
“ Whoop and shout and cry. 

Mr. and Mrs. Wedmore and the two girls hurried 
downstairs on hearing the door open, and stood by 
the fireplace, with a little glow of satisfaction and 
pleasure at the turn affairs had taken. 

It zvas a log 1 Or, rather, it was more than a log ; 
for it was half a tree. Slowly the huge thing came 
in, scraping the nicely polished floor, rolling a little 
from side to side, and threatening all those within 
a yard of it. And then, when its appearance had 
spread consternation through the household, the 
inevitable question came : What was to be done 
with it? 

The fire-basket had been taken out of the hearth 
on purpose for its reception, but it was evident that, 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


167 


even after this careful preparation, to think of 
burning it whole was out of the question. There 
was nothing for it but to send for a saw and to re- 
duce the log then and there to a manageable size. 

This was done, amid considerable noise and ex- 
citement, drinking of the health of the family by 
villagers who had been drinking too much already, 
and much scraping of the polished floor by muddy, 
hob-nailed boots 

Finally the deputation was got rid of, and the 
interrupted dinner was allowed to proceed, much to 
the comfort of Max, who had eaten nothing since 
breakfast, and much to the dismay of Mrs. Wed- 
more, who was then able to ascertain the extent of 
the damage done by the invaders. 

It was lucky for Max that he had arrived at such 
an opportune moment. His father had been 
grumbling at the number of visits he had made to 
town lately, and the young man would have found 
him in no very good humor if he had not dis- 
covered to his hand the opportunity of making 
himself conspicuously useful. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that Max did not 
tell any one about the adventures he had met with. 
He knew that he should have to go through the 
ordeal of an interview with his sister, Doreen, who 
would want to know a great deal more than he was 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


1 68 


willing to tell her ; but he was tired, and he made 
up his mind that he would not be interrogated that 
evening. So he gave her no opportunity for the 
confidential talk she was dying to have with him, 
but spent the remainder of the evening in dutiful 
attendance upon his mother. 

The following day was Christmas Eve. Max 
came down late to breakfast, and he had scarcely 
entered the morning-room when his father handed 
him the Standard^ pointing to a certain paragraph 
without any comment but a glance at the girls, as a 
hint to his son not to make ' any remark which 
would recall Dudley and his affairs to their minds. 

The paragraph: was as follows : 

SHOCKING DISCOVERY! 

‘‘ The body of a man was found floating in the river close to 
Limehouse Pier late yesterday evening. Medical evidence points 
to death by violence, and the police are making inquiries. It is 
thought that the description of the body, which is that of a man 
of a Jewish type of countenance, rather under than over the mid- 
dle height, aged between fifty and fifty-five, gray hair and short, 
gray beard, tallies with that given a few days ago by a woman 
who applied at the — — Street Police Court, alleging that her 
husband had disappeared in the above neighborhood. The 
police are extremely reticent, but at the present they have no clue 
to the authors of the outrage. The body awaits identification at 
the mortuary, and an inquest will be held to-day.” 

“ I wonder whether Dudley will see that ?” said 
Mr. Wedmore, in a low voice, as soon as his 
daughters were engaged in talk together. “ It 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


169 


looks like the sequel to the other paragraph which 
upset him so the other evening, doesn’t it? I shall 
watch the papers for the result of the inquest. It 
seems to me pretty certain that it was Edward 
Jacobs. Curious affair, isn’t it, that he should be 
murdered in a slum, after making a fortune at 
other people’s expense ? Retribution — just retri- 
bution ! Curious, isn’t it !” 

To Max it was so • much more than merely 
“ curious,” knowing what he did, that he felt sick 
with horror. Surely this body, found floating near 
Limehouse Pier, was the one he had touched in the 
dark ! 


170 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

IS IT BLACKMAIL? 

Mr. Wedmore repeated his comment : ‘‘ Curious, 
isn’t it?” before Max could reply. At last he 
nodded, and handed back the paper to his father. 
Then he turned his chair toward the fire, and stared 
at the blazing coals. He had lost his appetite ; he 
felt cold, miserable. 

His father could not help noticing that some- 
thing was wrong with him ; and, after watching 
him furtively for a few minutes, he said, with 
an abruptness which made Max start : 

Did you see anything of Dudley when you were 
in town ?” 

Max changed color, and glanced apprehensively 
at his father, as if fearing some suspicion in the 
unexpected question. 

“ No, sir,” he answered, after a moment’s hesita- 
tion. “ I called at his chambers ; but they told me 
he had gone away for the holidays and had left no 


The Wharf by the Docks. 171 

address. All letters were to be kept for him till 
his return.’* 

Both question and answer had been uttered very 
softly, but Max saw, by the look on Doreen’s face, 
as she. glanced over from the other side of the 
table, that she guessed what they were talking 
about, if she had not heard their words. 

“ Aren’t you going to have any breakfast. Max?” 
asked she, as she came round to him. “ We ’ve 
kept everything about for you, and we want the 
table.” 

“ Well, you can have it,” said he, jumping up, 
quickly, and making for the door. “ I don’t want 
any breakfast this morning.” 

“ Nonsense. You will not be allowed to leave the 
room until you have had some,” retorted his sister, 
as she sprang at him and attempted to pinion his 
arms. “ We allow no ill-temper on Christmas Eve, 
especially as we ’ve got a surprise for you — a beau- 
tiful, real surprise. Guess who is coming this 
morning to stay till New Year !” 

Queenie had come up by this tim^, and the two 
girls between them brought their brother back to 
the table, where the younger sister began to pour 
out his coffee. 

But Max refused to show the slightest inter- 
est in the coming guest, and would not at- 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


172 


tempt to guess who it was. So they had to tell 
him. 

“ It was all on your account that we asked her,” 
said Doreen, hurt by his indifference. “ You took 
such a fancy to her, and she to you, apparently, at 
the Hutchinsons’ dance, that we thought you ’d be 
delighted. Nozv, don’t you know who it is?” 

To their great disappointment, both girls saw 
that he didn’t. Mr. Wedmore, from the other end 
of the room, was observing this little incident with 
considerable annoyance. The young lady in ques- 
tion, Miss Mildred Appleby, was very pretty, and 
•would be well dowered, and Mr. Wedmore had 
entered heartily into the plan of inviting her to 
spend Christmas with them, in the hope that Max 
would propose, be accepted, and that he would then 
make up his mind to settle. 

“ Why, it’s Mildred Appleby,” said Doreen, im- 
patiently, when her brother’s blank look had given 
her the wrong answer. “ Surely, you don’t mean to 
say you’ve forgotten all about her?” 

'‘_Oh, no, remember her,” answered Max, in- 
differently. “ Tall girl with a fashion-plate face, 
waltzes pretty well and can’t talk. Yes, I remem- 
ber her, of course.” 

“ Is that all you have to say about her?” cried 
Doreen, betraying her disappointment. “ Why, a 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


173 


mpnth ago she was the nicest and the jolliest and 
the everythingest girl you had ever met.” 

“ He ’s seen somebody else since then,” remarked 
the observant ^Queenie, in her dry, little voice. 
“ When he was in town yesterday, perhaps.” 

Max looked at his sister with a curious expres- 
sion. Was she right ? Had he, in that adventurous 
thirty-six hours in London, seen somebody who 
took the color out of all the other girls he had ever 
met ? He asked himself this question when 
Queenie’s shrewd eyes met his, and he remembered 
the strange sensation he had felt at the touch of 
Carrie’s hand, at the sound of her voice. 

Before he could answer his sister, Mr. Wedmore 
spoke impatiently : 

“ Rubbish !” cried he, testily. “ Every young man 
thinks it the proper thing to talk like that, as if no 
girl was good enough for him. Miss Appleby is a 
charming girl, and she will find plenty of admirers 
without waiting for Max’s valuable adoration.” 

He had much better not have spoken, blundering 
old papa that he was. And both daughters thought 
so, as they saw Max raise his eyebrows and gather 
in all the details of the little plot in one sweeping 
glance at the faces around him. He drank his 
coffee, but he could not eat. Doreen sat watching 
him, ready to spring upon him at the first possible 


174 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


moment, and to carry him off for the tete-a-tHe he 
was so anxious to put off. 

What should he tell his sister of that adventure 
of his in the slums of the East End? Would she be 
satisfied if he told a white lie, if he said he had found 
out nothing ? 

Max felt that Doreen would not be satisfied if he 
got himself out of the difficulty like that. In the 
first place, she would not believe him. He saw that 
her quick eyes had been watching him since his 
return, and he felt that he had been unable to hide 
the fact that something of greater significance had 
occurred during that brief stay in town. What then 
should he tell her? Perfect frankness, perfect confi- 
dence was out of the question. To look back now, 
in the handsome, spacious house of his parents, 
from the snug depths of an easy -chair, on the time 
he had passed on and about the wharf by the docks, 
was so strange that Max could hardly believe in his 
own experiences. 

Who would believe the story of his adventures, 
if he himself could scarcely do so ? Would Doreen, 
would anybody give credence to the story of the 
dead body that he touched, but never saw, the eyes 
that looked at him from an unbroken wall, the girl 
who lured him into the shut-up house, and then let 
him out again with an air of secrecy and mystery ? 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


175 


The transition had been so abrupt from the 
gloomy wharf, with its suspicious surroundings and 
the heavy, fog-laden air of the riverside, back to 
the warmth and light and brightness of home, that 
already his adventures had receded into a sort of 
dreamland, and he began to a^k himself whether 
Carrie, with her fair hair and moving blue eyes, her 
vibrating voice and changeful expression, were not 
a creature of his imagination only. 

He was still under the influence of the feelings 
roused by this dreamy remembrance, when he 
snatched the opportunity afforded by Doreen’s 
being called away by Mrs. Wedmore, to go out 
into the grounds, on his way to the stables. A ride 
through the lanes in the frosty air would, he 
thought, be the best preparation for the trying 
ordeal of that inevitable talk with Doreen, whose 
wistful eyes haunted him as she waited for a chance 
of speaking to him alone. 

In the garden a scene of desolation met his eye. 

The lawns were torn up and trodden down ; the 
gravel path from the stables looked like a freshly 
plowed field ; every tree and every bush bore the 
marks of the marauder. 

The head gardener was in a condition of unap- 
proachable ferocity, and* it was generally under- 
stood that he’ had given notice to leave. The 


1 76 The Wharf by the Docks, 

under-gardeners kept out of the way, but could be 
heard at intervals checking outbursts of derisive 
laughter behind the shrubberies. The story of the 
Yule log and its adventures was the best joke the 
country had had for a long time, and it was bound 
to lose nothing as it passed from mouth to mouth. 
And poor Mr. Wedmore began to dread the ordeal 
of congratulations he would have to go through 
when he next went to church. 

Max felt sorry for his father. As he entered the 

stable-yard, which was a wide expanse of flagged 

/ 

ground at the back of the house, round which were 
many outbuildings, he came upon a group of snick- 
ering servants, all enjoying the story of the master’s 
freak. 

The group broke up guiltily on the appearance 
of Max, the laundry-maids taking flight in one di- 
rection, while the stablemen became suddenly busy 
with yard-broom and leather. 

Max put a question or two to the groom who 
saddled his horse for him. 

“ There was no great harm done last night, was 
there, except in the garden? You have not heard 
of anything being stolen, eh ?” 

“ Well, no, sir. But it brought a lot of people up 
as had no business here. * There was a person come 
up as we couldn’t get rid of, asking questions about 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


177 


the family, sir ; and about Mr. Horne, too, sir. She 
wouldn’t believe as he wasn’t here, an’ she fright- 
ened some of the women, I believe, sir. They 
didn’t know where she ’d got to, an’ nobody saw 
her go out of the place, so they ’ve got an idea 
she ’s hiding about. A fortune-telling tramp, most 
likely, sir,” added the man, who wished he had held 
his tongue about the intruder when he saw how 
strongly the young master was affected by this 
story. 

The fact was that Max instantly connected this 
apparition of a woman “ who asked questions about 
Mr. Horne ” with the ugly story told him at the 
house by the wharf, and he was glad that Dudley 
was not spending Christmas at The Beeches. 

He was oppressed during the whole of his ride 
by this suggestion that the questionable characters 
of the wharfside were pursuing Dudley ; it gave 
color to Carrie’s statement that it was Dudley who 
killed the man whom Max believed to have been 
Edward Jacobs ; and it looked as if the object of 
the woman’s visit was to levy blackmail. 

Or was it — could it be that the woman was Carrie, 
and that her object was to warn Dudley? To asso- 
ciate Carrie herself with the levying of blackmail, 
was not possible to the susceptible Max in the pres- 
ent state of his feelings toward her. 


178 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


And, just as he was meditating upon this mystery, 
all unprepared for a meeting with his sister, Doreen 
waylaid him. He was entering the house by the 
back way, muddy from his ride, when she sprang 
upon him from an ambush on the stairs. 

“ I ’ve been waiting all the morning to catch you 
alone,” said she, as she ran out from behind the tall 
clock and seized his arm. “ You Ve been trying to 
avoid me. Don’t deny it. I say you have. As if 
it was any use ! No, you shall not go upstairs and 
take off your boots first. You will just come into 
the study, mud and all, and tell me — tell me what 
you knoWy not what you have been making up, 
mind ! I ’m going to have the truth.” 

“ Well, you can’t,” returned her brother, shortly, 
as he allowed himself to be dragged across the hall, 
which looked cheerless enough without a fire, and 
with the great, clumsy, hideous, maimed old Yule 
log filling up the fireplace and reminding every- 
body of all that it had cost. 

Doreen pushed him into the study and shut the 
door. 

“ Why can’t I know the truth ?” asked she, eying 
him steadily. “ Do you mean that you have found 
out Dudley doesn’t care for me ’ 

Max glanced at his sister’s face, and then looked 
away. He had not known till that moment, when 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


179 


he caught the tender look of anxiety in her big 
brown 'eyes, how strong her love of Dudley was. 
An impulse of anger against the man seized him, 
and he frowned. 

“ Why, surely you know already that he doesn’t 
care for you, in the way he ought to care, or he 
would never have neglected you, never have given 
you up !” said he, ferociously. 

“ I’m not so sure about that. At any rate I want 
to know what you found out. Don’t think I ’m not 
strong enough to bear it, whatever it is !” 

“ Well, then, I ’ll tell you. He is off his head. 
He has got mixed up in some way with a set of 
people no sane man would trust himself with for 
half an hour, and^ — and — and — well, they say — the 
people say he ’s done something that would hang 
him. There ! Is that enough for you ?” 

He felt that he was a brute to tell her, but he 
could see no other way out of the difficulty in which 
her own persistency had placed him. She stared at 
him for a few seconds with blanched cheeks, clasp- 
ing her hands. Then she said in a whisper : 

“ You don’t mean — murder ?” 

Her brother’s silence gave her the answer. 

There was a long pause. Then she spoke in a 
changed voice, under her breath : 

Poor Dudley !” 


i8o The Wharf by the Docks. 


Max was astonished to see her take the announce- 
ment so quietly. 

‘‘ Well, now you see that it is impossible to do 
anything for him, don’t you ?” 

“ Indeed, I do not !” retorted Doreen, with spirit. 
“We don’t know the story yet. We don’t know 
whether there is any truth in it at all ; or, if there is, 
what the difficulties were that he was in. Look, 
Max. You must remember how worried he has 
been lately. I have heard him make excuses for 
people who did rash things, and I have always 
agreed with him. You see, I knew how good- 
hearted he was, and I know that he would never 
have done an 5 dhing mean or underhand or un 
worthy.” 

“ Don’t you call murder, manslaughter — whatever 
it is — unworthy ?” asked Max, irritably. 

“ Not without knowing something about it,” an- 
swered she. “ And I think there’s generally more 
to be said for the man who commits murder than 
for any other criminal. And — and” — her voice gave 
way and began to shake with tears — “ I don’t care 
what he ’s done, I ’m sorry for him. I — I want to 
help him, or — or, at least, I want to see him to tell 
him so !” 

Max was alarmed. Knowing the spirit and cour- 
age of his brilliant sister, he was afraid lest she 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


i8i 


should conceive the idea of starting off herself on 
some mad enterprise ; so he said hastily : 

“ He ’s away now, you know. He ’s gone without 
leaving any address. Perhaps I was wrong, after 
all. Perhaps when he comes back he will be him- 
self again, and — and everything will be cleared up. 
We can only wait and see.” 

But this lame attempt at comfort met with no 
warm response from his sister. She looked at him 
with a poor little attempt at a contemptuous smile, 
and then, afraid of breaking down altogether, 
sprang up from the arm-chair in which she had 
been sitting and left him to himself. 

Max did not recover his usual spirits at luncheon, 
where everybody else was full of mirthful anticipa- 
tion of the household dance, another idea of Mr. 
Wedmore’s, which was to be a feature of the even- 
ing. And after that meal, instead of offering to 
drive to the station to meet Miss Appleby, as every- 
body had expected. Max took himself off, nobody 
knew where, and did not return home until dusk. 

Coming through a little side gate in the park, he 
got into the great yard behind the house, where the 
stables stood on one side and a huge barn, which 
was only used as a storage place for lumber, on the 
other. And it occurred to him that if the woman 
of whom the groom told him were still hanging 


i 82 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


about the premises, as the servants seemed to think, 
this was the very place she might be expected to 
choose as a hiding-place. 

So he pushed open the great, creaking door of the 
barn and went in. It was very dark in there, and 
the air was cold and damp. A musty smell from 
old sacks, rotting wood and mildewed straw came to 
his nostrils, as he made his way carefully over the 
boards with which the middle part of the barn 
had, for some forgotten purpose or other, been 
floored. 

Little ehinks of light from above showed great 
beams, some with ropes hanging from them, and 
stacks of huge lumber cf fantastic shapes to right 
and left. 

Max stood still in the middle of the floor and 
listened for a sound. But he heard nothing. Sud- 
denly he thought of the signal by the use of which 
he had summoned Carrie to the door of the house 
by the wharf. 

Getting close to one of the piles of lumber, he 
gave two taps on the panel of a broken wooden 
chest, waited a couple of seconds, and then gave 
two taps more. 

There was a shuffling noise along the boards on 
the other side of the stack, followed by the striking 
of a match. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


183 


Max was around the obstacle in a moment. Hold- 
ing a piece of candle in her bony hand was Mrs. 
Higgs. 

“ Hello!” said he. 

She said nothing. But the candle shook in her 
hand, and by the glassy look of dull yet fierce sur- 
prise in her colorless eyes Max saw that this woman, 
who had connived at his imprisonment in the room 
with the dead man, had never expected to see him 
again — alive. 


CHAPTER XV. 

MR. WEDMORE’S second freak. 

Even if Max had not had such an ugly experience 
of the ways of Mrs. Higgs, even if this meeting 
with her in the barn had been his first, his sensa- 
tions would hardly have been agreeable ones. 
There was something uncanny about the old woman, 
something which her quiet, shuffling movements 
and her apparent lack of interest in what went on 
around her only served to accentuate. Even now, 
while suffering the shock of a great surprise. Max 
could feel rather than see the effect which the un- 
expected meeting had upon her. ' 


184 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


For she uttered no cry, no word; her eyes scarcely 
opened wider than before. Her jaw dropped a 
little, and then began to move rapidly up and down ; 
that was all. And yet, as Max looked at her — at 
this helpless, infirm old creature with the palsied 
hands and the lackluster eyes — he shivered. 

“ You vile old hag !” thought he to himself. And 
then his thoughts flew to Carrie, and he asked him- 
self what the attraction could be which bound her 
to this wicked old woman. 

Mrs. Higgs, after staring at him in dead silence 
for what seemed a long time, asked, as composedly 
as if their meeting had been the most natural thing 
in the world : 

“ Where ’s your friend, young man ?” . 

W — what friend ?” stammered Max. 

“ Oh, you don’t know, I suppose !” retorted Mrs. 
Higgs, derisively. “ No more than you know what 
you wanted to come spying about Plumtree Wharf 
for, eh?” 

Max made no answer. There came a vixenish 
gleam into the old woman’s faded eyes. 

“ What did you come for, eh ?” pursued she, 
sharply. “ Who sent you? Not he, I know ! When 
he-’s got anything to do at the wharf he comes him- 
self.” 

And Mrs. Higgs gave an ugl^y, mirthless chuckle. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


185 


As Max stared at the withered, lined face, which 
was growing each moment more repulsive in his 
eyes, a feeling of horror and of intense pity for 
Dudley seized him. To be pursued, as his friend 
evidently was pursued, by this vicious old hag, was 
a fate hideous enough to expiate every crime in the 
Decalogue. 

A little rapid reflection made him decide that a 
bold course of defiance was the best to be taken. 
Whatever Dudley might have done, and whatever 
terrors Mrs. Higgs might hold over his head, it was 
very certain, after all, that the evidence of such a 
creature, living in such an underground fashion, 
could never be a serious danger to a man in his 
position. Dudley himself seemed rather to have 
lost sight cyf this fact, certainly ; but it could not be 
less than a fact for all that. 

“Mr. Horne is not likely to trouble you or the 
rest of the thieves at the wharf again,” said Max, 
with decision. “ He ’s gone abroad for a holiday. 
And if you don’t take yourself off at once, or if you 
turn up here again, or if you attempt to annoy us or 
Mr. Horne, in an}^ way whatever, you ’ll find the 
police at your heels before you know where you are.” 

Then into her dull eyes there came a look of 
malignity which made Max doubt whether he had 
done well to be so bold. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


i86 


“Thieves, eh? Tell your friend we’re thieves, 
and see what he says to that! Police, eh? Tell 
your friend that, tell your friend that, and see 
whether he ’ll thank you for your interference 1” 

“ Mr. Horne is away, as I told you.” 

“ Away, is he ? But he won ’t be away long. Oh, 
no ; he ’ll come back — he ’ll come back. Or if he 
doesn’t,” added Mrs. Higgs, with complacency, 
“ I ’ll fetch him.” 

“ Well, you ’ve got to leave this place at once,” 
said Max, with decision. “We don’t allow strangers 
in the barn, and if you don’t go quietly at once, I 
must send somebody to turn you out.” 

Mrs. Higgs kept her eyes fixed upon him with 
her usual blank stare while he said this in a very 
loud and decided tone. When he had finished she 
suddenly blew out the light with so much unneces- 
sary force that Max felt something like a gust of 
wind upon his face. 

“ Turn me out !” and she laughed harshly. “ Turn 
me out ! Send for the police to do it, if you like.” 

Max went out of the barn, listening to her cack- 
ling laugh, and not feeling comfortable until he had 
found his way into the open air. He at once gave 
orders to the stablemen and gardeners to search the 
barn and to turn out the strangers they might find 
there. 


The Wharf by the DocJ^s. 


187 


But though they hunted in every corner, they 
found no one, and Max was only too glad to come 
to the conclusion that Mrs. Higgs had taken his ad- 
vice, and got away with as little delay as possible. 

This incident, however, following so closely on 
the heels of his experiences at the wharf, took away 
all the zest with which Max should have entered 
into the programme, which, by Mr. Wedmore’s 
special wish, had been prepared for that evening ; 
and while Doreen and Queenie and Mildred Apple- 
by and two young nephews of Mr. Wedmore’s 
chattered and laughed, and made dinner a very 
lively affair, Max was quiet and what his cousins 
called “ grumpy,” and threatened to be a wet blanket 
on the evening’s entertainment. 

“ Going to have all the servants in to dance Sir 
Roger !” cried he, in dismay, when Doreen told him 
the news. “ Good heavens ! Hasn’t he had a lesson 
in yesterday’s tomfoolery and what came of it? 
How do the servants like the idea ?” 

“Of course they hate it,” answered Doreen, “and 
mamma has been all day trying to coax the cook to 
indulge him, and not to walk off and leave us to 
cook the Christmas dinner. And, of course, this 
assurance that the notion was distasteful to every- 
body had made papa more obstinate than ever. Oh, 
we shall have a merry time,” 


1 88 The Wharf by Ihe Docks. 


Now, down in the depths of his heart Mr. Wed- 
more had begun to feel some misgivings about his 
plans for keeping Christmas in the good old fashion. 
But the first failure, the colossal mistake of the Y ule 
Log, had made him obstinate instead of yielding, 
and he had set his teeth and made up his mind that 
they should all be merry in the way he chose, or 
they should not be merry at all. 

The fact. was that this prosaic middle-aged gentle- 
man, who had passed the greater part of his life 
immersed in day-books and ledgers and the details 
of a busy city man’s life, found time hang heavy on 
his hands in these prosperous days of his retire- 
ment, and in this condition he had had his mind 
inflamed by pictures of the life that was led in The 
Beeches by his forerunners, easy-going, hard-riding, 
hard-drinking country gentlemen, with whom, if the 
truth were known, he had nothing in common. 

Fired by the desire to live the life they led, to 
enjoy it in the pleasant old fashion, it had seemed 
to him an especially happy custom to give a dance 
at which masters and servants should join hands 
and make merry together. He had never assisted 
at one of these balls, and he refused to listen to his 
wife’s suggestion that it should take place in the 
servants’ hall, that the servants should be allowed 
to invite their own friends, and that the family 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


189 


sliould limit itself to one brief dance with their 
dependants and then leave them to enjoy themselves 
in their own way. 

No, it was his will that the dance should be held 
in the hall of the house, and that the pictures of the 
Illustrated Christmas Numbers should be realized 
to the utmost. 

Dinner, therefore, was scrambled over in a hurry, 
and the family with their guests went upstairs to 
the drawing-room or out to the billiard-room, while 
preparations were made for the great event of the 
evening, the lighting of the Yule Log and Sir Roger 
de Coverley. 

Then the first mishap occurred in the inoppor- 
tune arrival of the Rev. Lisle Lindsay, whose rather 
sedate and solemn appearance cast a slight gloom 
upon everybody's spirits, which deepened when 
Queenie whispered to Mildred that he looked upon 
dancing as a frivolous and worldly amusement 
scarcely to be tolerated and never to be encour- 
aged. 

He soon made an opportunity of devoting himself 
to Doreen, who was playing the lightest of light 
music at the piano in the corner of the room. 

It had been a fancy of Mr. Wedmore’s, who had 
his own way in everything with his wife, to have 
this drawing-room, which was large and square and 


1 90 The Wharf by the Docks. 

%■ 

lighted by five windows, three at the front and two 
at the side, furnished entirely with old things of 
the style of eighty years back, with Empire chairs, 
sofas and cabinets, as little renovated as possible. 
The effect was quaint and not unpleasing ; a little 
cold, perhaps, but picturesque and graceful. 

The grand piano had a case specially made for it, 
painted a dull sage-green and finished in a manner 
to give it a look of the less massive harpsichord. 

It was at this instrument that Doreen sat, making 
a very pretty picture in her white silk, square- 
necked frock, with bands of beaver fur on the bodice 
and sleeves and an edging of the same fur round 
the bottom of the skirt. 

“ My purpose in coming here to-night. Miss Wed- 
more,” said Mr. Lindsay, when he had delivered an 
unimportant message from the vicar’s wife about the 
church decorations, “ was really to bring you my 
good wishes for this blessed season. I am afraid I 
shall have no opportunity of speaking to you to- 
morrow, though, of course, I shall see you in the 
church.” 

“ Oh, yes, we shall all be at church,” said Doreen, 
quickly. 

She noted something rather unusual in the 
curate’s manner — a nervous excitement which 
presaged danger ; and she da,shed into ^n air from 


The Wharf by the Docks, 19 1 


“ The Shop-Girl ’’ with an energy which was 
meant to have the effect of checking his solemn 
ardor. 

But the curate had the stuff of a man in him, and 
did not mean to be put off. This opportunity was 
really a good one, for the talk in the room, which 
his arrival had checked for an instant, was now 
going on merrily. Mrs. Wedmore did her best to 
keep up the conversation. Nothing would have 
pleased her better than to see Doreen transfer her 
tender feeling for the discredited Dudley to such a 
suitable and irreproachable person as Lisle Lindsay. 
She kept a hopeful eye on the pair at the piano 
while she went on talking to her husband’s old 
friend, Mrs. Hutchinson, who was staying with them 
for Christmas. 

And at the same time,” went on Mr. Lindsay, as 
he moved his chair a little nearer, so that, under 
cover of the music, he could speak without being 
overheard, “ to speak to you on a subject which is — 
is — in fact, very near my heart.” 

This was worse than Doreen had expected. She 
glanced round at him with rather a frightened ex- 
pression. “ Oh, don’t let us talk about anything — 
anything serious now,” said she. “ Just when we 
shall be going downstairs to — to dance— in a few 
minutes.” 


192 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


It was a very inconsequent objection to make, and 
Mr. Lindsay simply ignored it. 

“ It is, in fact, about myself that I wish to speak. 
Miss Wedmore,” he pursued relentlessly. “You 
cannot have failed to notice what a — what a deep 
interest I take in all that concerns you. And latterly 
I have flattered myself that ” — - 

“ But people should never flatter themselves 
about anything !” cried Doreen, desperately, as she 
suddenly laid her hands in her lap and turned from 
the piano to face the worst. “ Now I’ll give you an 
example. I flattered myself a little while ago that 
a man cared a great deal about rne — a man I cared 
a great deal for myself. And all the while he 
didn’t ; or, at least, I am afraid he didn’t. And yet, 
you know, I can’t help hoping that perhaps I didn’t 
only flatter myself, after all ; that perhaps he will 
come back some day and tell me I was right.” 

Mr. Lindsay heard her in silence, with his mild 
eyes fixed on the carpet. But when she had 
finished he looked up again, and she was shocked 
to find that the gentle obstinacy which had been 
in his face before was there still. 

“ I am, indeed, sorry for your disappointment,” 
he said sweetly. “ Or rather I should be if it were 
such a one that you could not hope to — to — in fact, 
to get over it. But — but these are trials which may 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


193 


be, perhaps, only sent to show that you, even you, 
happily placed as you are and gifted of the Al- 
mighty, are human, after all, and not beyond suffer- 
ing. And — and it may give you an opportunity of 
seeing that there are others who can appreciate 
you better, and who would only be too glad to — to 
— to-^” 

“To step into his shoes!” finished Doreen for 
him, with a sigh. “ I know what you were going 
to say, and if you won’t be stopped, I suppose I 
must hear you out. But, oh, dear, I do wish you 
wouldn’t !” 

He was not to be put off like that. In fact, he was 
not to be put off by any available means. He sighed 
a little, and persisted. 

“ I am glad you have guessed what I was going 
to say. Miss Wedmore, though I should not have 
put it quite in that way. And why should you not 
want to hear it ? I should have thought that even 
you must be not quite indifferent to any man’s hon- 
est feelings of esteem and admiration toward you !” 

Doreen was looking at him helplessly, with wide- 
open eyes. Did he really think any girl was ever 
moved by this sort of address, deliberately uttered, 
with the words well chosen, well considered ? As 
different as possible from the abrupt, staccato 
method used by Dudley in the dear old days ! 


194 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


“ Oh, I ’m not indifferent at all !” said she, quickly. 
“ I ’m never indifferent to anything or anybody. 
But I ’m sorry, very sorry that — that you should 
feel-^” 

She stopped short, looked at him for a moment 
curiously, and asked with great abruptness : 

''Do you feel anything in the matter? Really 
feel, I mean? I don’t think you do ; I don’t think 
you can. You couldn’t speak so nicely, if you did.” 

He looked at her with gentle reproach. His was 
not a very tempestuous feeling, perhaps, but it was 
genuine, honest, sincere. He thought her the most 
splendid specimen of handsome, healthy well- 
brought-up womanhood he had ever met, and he 
thought also that the beneficent influence of the 
Church, exercised through the unworthy medium 
of himself, would mold her into a creature as near 
perfection as was humanly possible. 

Her way of receiving his advances was perplex- 
ing. He was not easily disconcerted, but he did 
not answer her immediately. Then he said softly : 

How could I speak in any way but what you call 
‘ nicely’ to you ? To the lady whom I am asking to 
be my wife ?” 

Doreen looked startled. 

“ Oh, don’t, please 1 You don’t know what a mis- 
take you’re making. I ’m not at all the sort of wife 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


• 195 


for you, really ! Indeed, I couldn’t recommend 
myself as a wife to anybody, but especially to you.” 

Why — especially to me ?” 

V Well, I ’m not good enough.” 

That sounds rather flattering. And yet, some- 
how, I don’t fancy you mean it to be so.” 

Well, no, I don’t,” said Doreen, frankly ; for 
I mean by ‘good’ a lot of qualities that I don’t 
think highly of myself, such as getting up in the 
middle of the night to go to early service, and 
being civil to people I hate, and — and a lot of 
things like that. Don’t you know that I ’m emi- 
nently deficient in all the Christian virtues?” 

This was a question the curate had never asked 
himself ; but it came upon him at this moment with 
disconcerting force that she was right. Luckily 
for his self-esteem, it did not occur to him at the 
same time that it was this very lack of the conven- 
tional virtues, a certain freshness and originality 
bom of her defiant neglect of them, which formed 
the stronger part of her attractiveness in his eyes. 

After a short pause he answered, with his usual 
deliberation : 

“ Indeed, I am quite sure that you do yourself in- 
justice.” 

“ Oh, but I ’m equally sure that I don’t. I not 
only leave undone the things which you would say 


196 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


I ought to do, and do the things which I ought not 
to do, but I 'm rather proud of it.” 

Still, Mr. Lindsay would not accept the repulse. 
He persisted in making excuses for her and in be- 
lieving them. 

Well, you fulfill your most important duty ; 
you are the happiness and the brightness of the 
house. Your father’s face softens whenever you 
come near him. Now, as that is your chief duty, 
and you fulfill it so well, I am quite sure that if you 
entered another state of life where your duties 
would be different, you would accommodate your- 
self, you would fulfill your new duties as well as 
you did the old.” 

Doreen rewarded him for this speech with a 
humorous look, in which .there was something of 
gratitude, but more of rebellion. 

“Accommodate myself? No, I couldn’t. I think, 
do you know, that if I were ever foolish enough to 
marry — and it would be foolishness in a spoiled 
creature like me — I should want a husband who 
could accommodate himself to me. Now, you 
couldn’t. Clergymen never accommodate them- 
selves to anything or anybody.” 

The Reverend Lisle Lindsay did at last look 
rather disconcerted. Mischievous Doreen saw her 
triumph and made the most of it. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


197 


“ So that settles the matter, doesn’t it ? I can’t 
accommodate myself ; you can’t either. What 
could possibly come of a union like that?” 

“ The greatest happiness this world is capable of 
affording, and the hope of a happiness more abiding 
hereafter,” said he ; “ all the happiness that a true 
woman can bring to the man she loves.” 

Doreen threw up her head quickly. 

“ Ah ! that’s just it,” cried she. “ ‘ To the man 
she loves !’ But you are not the man I love, Mr. 
Lindsay. I suppose it ’s one of the things I ought 
not to do — one of the unconventional and so un- 
christian things — to own that I love a man who 
doesn’t love me. But I do. Now, you know who 
it is, and everybody knows. ; but, for all that, you 
mustn’t tell ; you must keep it as a secret that Do- 
reen Wedmore — proud, stuck-up Doreen — is break- 
ing her heart for the sake of a man who — who — ” 
Her voice broke and she paused for a moment to 
recover herself ; then she said, in a lighter tone : 

Ah, well, we mustn’t be hard upon him, either, 
for we don’t know — it ’s so difficult to know.” 

She sprang up from her seat ; and the curate rose 
too. By her tactful mention of her own unlucky 
love she had softened the blow of her rejection 
of him. She had been rather too kind indeed, con- 
sidering the tenacity of the person she had to deal 


198 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


with ; for the curate considered his case by no means 
so hopeless as it was; and instead of taking himself 
off forlornly, as she would have wished, he stayed 
on until the young men swarmed up from the 
billiard-room and bore the whole party down to the 
hall. 

Mr. Wedmore, in great glee at having carried his 
point in the face of the family resistance, led Mrs. 
Hutchinson down stairs, and then handed her over 
to Max, while he h*imself threw open the door lead- 
ing to the servants’ quarters, and invited the group 
of neat maids and stalwart young men from the 
garden and stable to enter. 

But here there was a hitch in the arrangements. 
The cook, in a bad temper, smarting with disap- 
proval of the whole business, had refused to join the 
others, and, as nothing could be done without her, 
Mr. Wedmore had to penetrate into the servants’ 
hall, where he found her sitting in state, and, 
luckily, dressed for the occasion. 

Never in his life had Mr. Wedmore exerted him- 
self so much to please any woman as he now did to 
soften the outraged feelings of the cook, who was 
a stout, red-faced woman, whose days of comeliness 
and charm were long since gone by. He at last 
succeeded in inducing her to accompany him to the 
hallj where he arrived in triumph, with a flushed 


The Wharf by the Docks. . 


199 


face and nervous manner, after an interval which 
had been put to great advantage by the younger 
gentlemen of the party, who were all anxious to 
dance with the prettiest housemaid. 

Their eagerness had the effect of annoying the 
rest of the maids, and effectually spoiling whatever 
enjoyment they might have got out of the dance in 
the circumstances, while it by no means pleased the 
ladies of the family and their friends, who stood a 
little apart and whispered to each other that this 
sort of thing was bound to be a failure, and why 
couldn’t papa, dear old, stupid papa, leave them 
out of the affair, and let the boys have a romp in 
the servants’ hall without their assistance ? 

The pause had made the ladies, so frigid and the 
men-servants so shy, the pretty housemaid so merry 
and the plain ones so solemn, that disaster 
threatened the gathering, when Mr. Wedmore and 
the cook made their opportune appearance. 

Max, his cousins and young Hutchinson gave 
three cheers, in the midst of which demonstration 
the Rev. Lisle Lindsay endeavored to make his 
escape by the front door. 

Unhappily, Mr. Wedmore, elated by his victory 
over the cook, espied him, and straightway for- 
bade him to leave the house until after “ Sir 
Roger.” In vain the curate protested ; pleaded 


200 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


the privileges and exemptions of his sacred call- 
ing. 

Mr. Wedmore was obdurate ; and, to the disgust 
of everybody, including himself, the Rev. Lisle 
Lindsay found himself told off to dance with the 
pretty housemaid, being the only man in the room 
who was not anxious for the honor. 

This mishap cast a gloom over the proceedings. 
The rest of the gentlemen found it hard to extract 
a word from the other maids, who all considered 
themselves slighted. And Mr. Wedmore had great 
difficulty in persuading the men-servants to come 
forward and take their places by the partners he 
chose for them. To get them to choose for them- 
selves was out of the question, after one young 
gardener had availed himself of the invitation by 
darting across the floor and asking Miss Queenie, 
in a hoarse voice and with many blushes, if she 
would dance with him. 

Of course, this piece of daring made a sensation 
so great that to get another man follow the bold 
example was impossible. 

In the end, Mrs. Wedmore found a partner in the 
coachman, who was a portly and solemn person, 
with no talents in the way of dancing or of conver- 
sation. Doreen danced with the butler, who, be- 
tween nervousness and gloom, found it impossible 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


201 


to conceal his opinion that master was making a 
fool of himself ; and the rest of the company being 
quite as ill matched, ‘‘ Sir Roger ” was performed 
with little grace and less liveliness, while the Yule 
Log, after emitting a great deal of smoke, sputtered 
out into blackness, to everybody’s relief. 

The end of it was, however, a little better than 
the beginning. As the dancers warmed to their 
work, their latent enthusiasm for the exercise was 
awakened ; and ‘‘ Sir Roger ” was kept up until the 
fingers of the organist, who had been engaged to 
play for them on a piano placed in a corner of one 
of the passages, ached with the cold and with the 
hard work. 

When the dance was over and the party had 
broken up, Doreen, who had done her best to keep 
up the spirits of the rest, broke down. Max met 
her on her way to her room, and saw that the tears 
were very near her eyes. 

“What’s the matter now?” said he, crossly. 
“ You seemed all right downstairs. I thought you 
and Lindsay seemed to be getting on very well 
together.” 

“Did you? Well, you were wrong,” said she, 
briefly, as she shut herself into the room. 


202 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

A MESSAGE FROM THE WHARF. 

Christmas was over, and The Beeches had sub- 
sided into its normal state of prosperous tranquility. 
Max had had a fresh situation discovered for him, 
and he was now wasting his time on a stool in a 
merchant’s office, as he had wasted it in other offices 
many times before. His father’s chronic state of 
exasperation with his laziness was growing acute, 
and he had informed Max that unless he chose to 
stick to his work this time he would have to be 
shipped off to the Cape. No entreaties on the part 
of Mrs. Wedmore or the girls were of any avail 
against this fixed resolution on Mr. Wedmore’spart, 
or against the inflexible laziness of Max himself. 
He detested office work, and he confessed that if he 
was not to be allowed to lead the country life he 
loved, he would prefer enlistment in the Cape 
Mounted Police to drudgery in a dark corner of a 
city office. 

It was on a foggy evening in January that Max, 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


203 


for the first time in three weeks (an unprecedented 
interval), knocked at the door of Dudley Horne’s 
chambers- 

There was a long delay, and Max, after a second 
knock, was going to withdraw, in the belief that 
Dudley was not in, after all, when he heard slow 
steps within, and paused. 

The door was opened a very little way, and Dud- 
ley looked out. 

Max stared at him for a moment without speaking. 
For over his friend there had passed some great 
change. Dudley had never been florid of complex- 
ion, but now he looked ghastly. His face had 
always been grave and strong rather than cheerful, 
but now the expression of his countenance was for- 
bidding. 

He looked at Max, glanced down the stairs, and 
nodded without a smile. 

“ Hello !” said he, with the letter of familiarity, 
but without its spirit. Haven’t seen anything of 
you fora century. Up in town again, eh ?” 

“ Yes. Can’t I come in?” said Max. 

Dudley had come outside instead of inviting his 
friend in. At these words, however, he turned 
abruptly, and himself led the way into the little 
ante-chamber. 

“ Oh, yes, oh, yes, come in, of course. Come in.” 


204 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


Max accepted the cool invitation in silence, shut 
the door behind him, and followed his friend into 
the sitting-room, where the table was laid for a 
solitary dinner. 

But it was the writing-table which caught the eye 
of Max and riveted his attention. For a photograph 
lay there, a woman’s photograph, and as it was just 
in front of the chair Dudley had been using, as if 
he had been occupied in looking at it, it was not 
unnatural that the brother of Doreen should be 
curious to know whose picture it was. 

So Max got around the table quickly by the op- 
posite way to that which Dudley took, and threw 
himself into a chair by the writing-table in such a 
position that he could see what was on it. And he 
saw two things : One was that the photograph was 
that of Doreen ; the other that a postal order for one 
pound, which lay beside the photograph, and upon 
which the ink was not yet dry, was made out to 
“ Mrs. Edward Jacobs.” 

Max^elt himself blushing as Dudley snatched up 
the postal orders — there were two of them — and slip 
them into an envelope. Then the eyes of the two 
men met. And Dudley knew what Max had 
seen. 

He seemed to hesitate a moment, then glanced 
at Max again, sat down to the writing-table, and 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


205 


took up a pen. As he directed the letter, he said 
quietly : 

“ Do you know whom I ’m sending this money 
to?’’ 

“ Well, I did catch sight of the name,” stammered 
Max, unable to hide the fact that the question was 
an embarrassing one to him. 

Yes,” went on Dudley, as he showed him the 
directed letter, “ it is to the widow of the poor 
devil who was found in the Thames the other day 
— man who was once in my late father’s employ- 
ment — Edward Jacobs.” 

'‘Oh, yes, I ’ve heard,” stammered Max again. 

The incident of Dudley sending money to the 
woman would have seemed to him trivial and even 
natural enough, if it had not been for the curious 
look of hard defiance which Dudley gave him out 
of his black eyes. It was like a challenge ; it set 
his friend wondering again, asking himself again 
all those tormenting questions about Edward 
Jacobs’s death which he had allowed to slip into a 
back place in his thoughts. 

As he looked down at the end of the white table- 
cloth which touched the floor a loud laugh from 
Dudley startled him and made him look up. And 
when he did so the conviction that his friend was 
mad, or, at least, subject to attacks of insanity, 


2o6 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


flashed into his mind more strongly than ever. 
Dudley was leaning back, tilting his chair till it 
touched the dinner table, distending his jaws in a 
hard, mocking laugh as unlike mirth as possible. 

“Oh, yes, so I’ve heard — so I’ve heard!” re- 
peated he, mockingly. “ And, of course, that ’s all 
you’ve heard, isn’t it? And you’ve never taken 
the trouble to make any personal inquiries in the 
matter? Or thought of taking a journey, say, as 
far as Plumtree Wharf to make any private inves- 
tigations ?” 

Max was startled. He saw clearly enough that 
which he would fain have denied — that Dudley was 
in communication with the people at the wharf, 
from whom he must have obtained this information. 
For a moment he was silent. It was not until Dud- 
ley’s harsh laughter had died away, and he, rather 
surprised to see how quietly Max took his accusa- 
tion, had wheeled round in his chair to look at his 
friend, that Max said : 

“ Well, I did go to the wharf. And I ’ll tell you 
why. Doreen is breaking her heart about you, and 
she would have me find out what was wrong with 
you.” 

Then there was silence. 

“ God bless her !*’ said Dudley at last, in a hoarse 
whisper. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


207 


Another silence. 

What did you tell her T whispered Dudley. 

^‘What could I tell her? I said you were mad.” 

‘‘ And what did you — think ? ” 

“ Well, I hardly know myself.” 

“ That’s right ! That’s the proper attitude !” cried 
Dudley. 

And then he laughed again uproariously. 

And in the midst of his laughter there was a 
knock at the door. 

For a moment neither man moved. Then Dud- 
ley got up slowly and walked out of the room, clos- 
ing the door behind him. Max heard him open 
the outer door, and then he heard a voice he knew 
— a young girl’s voice — say : 

“ This is Mr. Dudley Horne’s place, and you are 
Mr. Dudley Horne ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then let me come in. I ’ve come from — ” 

The voice dropped, and Max did not catch the 
rest. 

“ Stop ! I ’ll spBak to you here,” said Dudley, 
trying to keep her in the little ante-room. 

But the girl came straight in. It was Carrie. 


208 


The Wharf by the Docks, ^ 


CHAPTER XVIL 

A SORCERESS. 

Max was standing on the other side of the lamp, 
and Carrie did not see him. She announced her 
errand at once in a straightforward and matter-of- 
fact manner. 

Dick Barker’s been nabbed for stealing a 
watch. You ’ve got to get him off.” 

“ What do you mean ? 1 ’ve got to get him off ?” 

cried Dudley, indignantly. 

Carrie laughed. 

It ’s the message I was told to give you ; that ’s 
all.” 

“ Well, take this message back : that I refuse to 
have anything to do with your pickpocket.” 

Carrie turned to the door. 

“ All right-. I ’m to say that to Mrs. Higgs ? ” 

Stop !” thundered Dudley. 

Carrie paused, with her hand on the door. 

“ Did Mrs. Higgs send you ?” 

‘‘ Yes.” 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


209 


'‘Then wait a minute.’' 

All the indignation, all the defiance, had gone 
from his tone. He looked anxious, haggard. 

Carrie sat down like an automaton in the chair 
nearest to the door. 

There was a silence of some minutes’ duration 
when Carrie announced herself as a messenger 
from Mrs. Higgs. 

Dudley, who had either forgotten the presence 
of Max or was past caring how much his friend 
learned, since he already knew so much, walked up 
and down between the fireplace and the bookcase 
on the opposite wall, evidently debating what he 
should do. Carrie never once raised her eyes from 
the carpet, but sat like a statue beside the door, 
apparently as indifferent as possible as to the mes- 
sage she should take back. 

Max had risen from his seat and was standing 
where he could get a full view of her over the lamp 
on the dinner-table between them. Perhaps it was 
the yellow paper shade around the light which 
made the young girl’s face look so ghastly, or the 
rusty black clothes she wore. A plain skirt, the 
same that she had worn when he saw her first, a 
black stuff cape of home-made pattern, and a big 
black straw hat which had evidently done duty 
throughout the summer ; all were neatly brushed 


210 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


and clean, but well-worn and lusterless, and they 
heightened the appearance of deadly pallor which 
struck Max so much. 

Her eyes he could not see ; her scarlet lips were 
tightly closed, and her face seemed to him to wear 
an air of dogged determination which helped him 
to understand how it was that she had escaped the 
perils of her unprotected girlhood. Certainly it 
would have taken a good deal of courage, impu- 
dence or alcoholic excitement to make a man ad- 
dress to this statuesque and cold-faced creature a 
flippant word. 

She did not see Max, who kept so quiet that it 
was easy for her to overlook the presence of a third 
person in the room. He watched her intently, 
taking even more interest in her under these new 
conditions than he had done before. Would she 
retain her cold look and manner when he made his 
presence known to her, as he intended presently to 
do ? The question was full of interest to him. 

Presently Dudley stopped short in his walk, right 
in front of Carrie, who seemed, however, uncon- 
scious of or indifferent to the fact. 

“Who are you?” he asked, abruptly. 

Carrie looked up and surveyed him as if from a 
great distance. 

“ I don’t know,” she answered, rather quaintly, 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


211 


but evidently unconscious of the oddity of her own 
answer. There was a moment’s pause, and then 
she asked, briskly : 

• ‘‘ However, that doesn’t matter to you, does it ?” 

“ Well, yes, it does. You come here as a messen- 
ger. Now, I want to know your credentials.” 

“I don’t know what you mean. I live with Mrs. 
Higgs. She makes me call her ‘ Granny.’ ” 

Dudley at once became strongly interested. 

“Live with her, do you, and call her Granny? 
I’ve never seen you when I have visited Mrs. 
Higgs.” 

“ I ’ve seen you, though. I ’ve seen — ” 

She stopped. 

Dudley’s hand, the one Max could see from 
where he stood, moved convulsively. After an- 
other short pause, Carrie raised her head, and their 
eyes met. Each evidently saw something oddly in- 
teresting in the face of the other. 

“ I shall have to make some inquiries about you/’ 
said he at last. 

“Very well. You can go and make them.” 

Her tone was matter-of-fact, but neither impudent 
nor defiant. She did not seem to care. 

“ This Dick Barker, who has been nabbed, as you 
elegantly express it, is some sweetheart of yours, I 
suppose ? And you have persuaded Mrs. Higgs to 


212 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


send me this absurd message, asking me to appear 
for him ?” 

“ No. He 's nothing to me. Mrs. Higgs wants 
him got off, because if he ’s convicted he 11 tell all 
he knows, or at least enough to set the police on.” 

“ And what is that to me ?” 

Another pause, during which she looked down. 
Then Carrie raised her eyes again, and looked at 
him steadily. 

Oh, well, you know best.” 

Dudley turned away, muttering something under 
his breath. But the next moment he faced her 
again. 

“ And you are waiting to take my answer back ?” 

“ Mrs. Higgs said there would be no answer.” 

“ Then what are you waiting for ?” 

“ To see whether there is one or not.” 

And you ’re going straight back with it to your 
granny, whatever it is?” asked Dudley, with the 
same sharp tone of cross-examination. 

“ No. I am not going back to her. But I shall 
give the message to some one who is.” 

There was another pause, longer than any of the 
previous ones. Then Dudley said, shortly : 

You need not wait here any longer. I am going 
to see her myself.” 

Carrie had got upon her feet in the automatic 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


213 


manner she had maintained throughout the inter- 
view. 

“ Going to the wharf, are you ?” she said, with 
the first sign of human interest she had shown. 
“ Oh, very well.” 

There was something noticeable in her tone, 
something which made Max suspicious and anxious 
on his friend’s account. He came round the table 
with rapid steps, touched Dudley’s shoulder, and 
said, in a low voice : 

“ I ’ll go with you !” 

At the sound of his voice Carrie started vio- 
lently, and looked up at Max, staring with eyes 
full of wonder and something very like delight. 
The rigidity with which she had held herself, the 
automatic manner, the hard, off-hand tone, all dis- 
appeared at once ; and it was a new, a transformed 
Carrie, the fascinating, wayward, irresistible girl 
he had remembered, who gave him a smile and a 
nod, as she said, in a voice full of the old charm he 
remembered : 

“You! Is it you?” Then, breathlessly, with a 
change to anxiety in her voice : “ And are you 

going, too?” 

“ Yes. I ’m going with my friend,” said Max, as 
he came forward and held out a hand, into which 
she put hers very shyly ; “ from what I remember 


H 1 4 The Wharf by the Docks. 


of my visit to your place, I think two visitors are 
better than one.” 

‘‘ I don’t know whether granny will think so,” 
said Carrie, still in the same altered voice. 

She was shy, modest, charmin g. All her femi- 
ninity had returned, and both the young men felt 
the influence of the change. 

Dudley, who had instinctively stepped back to 
make way for his friend, was watching them both 
with surprise and uneasiness. 

“We must risk Mrs. Higgs’s displeasure,” said 
Max, dryly, “unless, indeed, Dudley,” and he 
turned to his friend, “ you will give up this expedi- 
tion altogether, as I strongly advise.”' 

But Dudley had made up his mind. He did not 
want Max to go with him, but he was resolved to 
go to the wharf. And his friend’s heart failed 
within him at the news. 

“ Don’t you think it would be advisable to get a 
policeman to accompany you ?” he hazarded in a 
low voice. 

But Dudley started violently at the suggestion. 

“ Policeman !” repeated he in a louder tone than 
Max had used. “ Good heavens, no !” 

Max, looking round, saw that Carrie had over- 
heard ; but she betrayed no emotion at the sugges- 
tion, even if she felt any. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


215 


Dudley pulled out his watch. 

“ I have an appointment for this evening,” said 
he ; “I must get out of it. Max, if you persist in 
going with me to the wharf, you ’re a fool. When 
your friends are doing well, you should stick to 
them ; when they have got into a mess, you should 
have appointments elsewhojre.” Although he spoke 
cynically, there was underneath his scoffing tone a 
strain of tenderness. He turned quickly to the girl 
at this point, as if afraid of betraying more feeling 
than he had intended to do. ‘‘You’ve delivered 
your message,” said he, sharply, “ now you can go.” 

But Carrie lingered. Looking shyly at Max, she 
said in a low voice : 

“ Have you made up your mind that you will go 
with him ?” 

“ Yes,” said Max. 

“ All right,” nodded Carrie. “ Then I ’ll go, too.” 

Dudley looked down at the girl with an impatient 
frown on his face. 

“ Supposing we don’t want you?” said he, dryly.' 

“ You will,” she answered briefly, without even 
looking at him. 

Dudley considered for a moment, and then said 
shortly : 

“ All right. We may as well keep an eye on you.” 

Carrie laughed, and then remained silent. As for 


2i6 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


Max, he was struck with an odd likeness between 
the girl’s dry, short manner of speaking to Dudley 
and Dudley’s manner of speaking to her. 

At that moment there was an interruption in the 
shape of the waiter from a neighboring restaurant, 
who came in with the dinner Dudley had ordered 
for himself. 

“ I shan’t want it now,” said Dudley, as the man 
put down the covered dishes on the table. 

Why, surely you ’re not in such a hurry that you 
haven’t time to dine ?” said Max. 

Dudley made an impatient gesture. 

“ I can get a biscuit somewhere, if I want it. I 
can’t eat just now.” 

“ Let me eat your dinner for you, then,” said 
Max. “ I ’ve had none. And if I ’m to go rambling 
all over the town to look after you, I shall want 
something to keep me going.” 

‘'All right,” said Dudley. “I’m to comeback 
here for you, then ?” 

And he took up his overcoat. Max began to help 
him on with it.- 

“ Come in here a moment,” said Dudley, in the 
same dry, abrupt manner as before ; “ I want to 
speak to you.” 

Max followed him into the ante-room, and Dudley 
shut the sitting-room door. 


'The Wharf by the Docks. 217 


“ That girl,” said he, with a frown — “ where did 
you pick her up ? At the wharf ?” 

“ I met her there. She was walking about out- 
side, afraid to go in. The old woman had left her 
there alone, with a — a — dead body in the place.” 

At these words a change came over Dudley’s 
face. 

You had better have left her alone,” said he, 
sharply. I wonder you hadn’t more sense than 
to take up with a girl like that.” 

Max fired up indignantly. 

‘‘ Like what ? There’s nothing wrong with the 
girl — nothing whatever. Surely her behavior to- 
night showed you that.” 

“ Her behavior !” said Dudley, mockingly. “ Do 
you mean her behavior to me, or to you ?” 

Both. It was that of a modest, straightforward 
girl.” 

“ Very straightforward — to me. Very modest to 
you. But I would not waste too much time over 
her virtues if I were you.” 

“ I don’t want to waste any,” replied Max, shortly. 
“ I don’t see how we can shake her off, since she 
has offered to go back to the wharf with us But 
I shall only be alone with her for the few minutes 
you leave us here. Or, better still, I ’ll go with 
you, and wait while you see your friend.” 




The Wharf by the Docks. 


“ What friend 

“ I thought you said you had an appointment 
with some one, and were going to put him off.” 

Oh, yes. Well, let us go to him now.” 

And Dudley softly opened the outer door. 

Max perceived that what he proposed was to give 
Carrie the slip. He drew back a step. 

“We can’t go without telling her, at least / can’t. 
The girl ’s quite right. It would be safer for her 
to go with us. For it ’s an awful place, not fit to 
trust oneself in.” 

“^And you think it would be the safer for the 
presence with us of one of the gang?” 

“ She is not one of the gang !” cried Max, invol- 
untarily raising his voice’. “ I ’d stake my life on 
there being no harm in her!” 

The door of the sitting-room was opened behind 
them, and Carrie came out. 

“ I couldn’t help hearing what you said,” she said, 
quietly. “ But you needn’t quarrel about me. One 
of you says there ’s no harm in me ; the other says 
there is. I dare say you ’re both right. If you 
don’t want me to go to the wharf with you, Mr. 
Horne, why, I won’t go, of course. Good even- 
ing.” 

She wanted to go out, but Dudley stood in the 
way, preventing her. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


219 


“ You ’re quite wrong, I assure you,” said he, 
quickly. ‘‘ There has been a little discussion about 
it, certainly ; but I think you and my friend are 
quite right, and it would be much better if you 
would go with us — much better. Pray don’t be 
annoyed at anything I ’ve said. Remember, I have 
never seen you before, while my friend, who 
knows you better, naturally appreciates you more.” 

Carrie maintained an attitude of cold stolidity 
while Dudley spoke. 

“ Am I to go with you now, then ?” she asked, 
coldly, when he had finished speaking. 

“Well, no, I think not. It will only take me ten 
minutes to go down into the Strand and put off the 
fellow I was going to the theatre with. I ’ll come 
back here, and we ’ll all go on together.” 

Carrie looked at him steadfastly while he spoke, 
and he returned her gaze. For a few moments 
there was silence, and then it was broken by an ex- 
clamation from Max. He was staring first at one 
and then at the other with a face full of perplexity. 

“ Do you know,” cried he at last, “ that when you 
both look like that, and I turn from one to the 
other, it is as if I were looking all the time at the 
same face f 

Both Dudley and Carrie looked startled as they 
withdrew their eyes from each other’s face. Then 


2 20 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


each sought the eyes of the other again as if it were 
furtively. Dudley seemed, of the two, the more 
impressed by his friend’s words. He laughed with 
some constraint. 

“Fanciful, very fanciful,” said he, mockingly. 
“ What likeness can there be between a girl with 
a white face, fair hair and blue eyes,” and he gave 
a glance at Carrie which had in it something of 
fear, “ and a man of my type?” 

Max looked at him, and then said slowly : 

“ It ’s not in the features, I know ; it ’s not in the 
coloring ; but it is there, for all that.” 

“ The young lady will not feel flattered,” said 
Dudley, ironically. “ I will leave you to make your 
peace with her, and when I come back, in ten 
minutes, I expect to find you both ready to start.” 

He had his hand on the door, when some thought 
seemed to strike him, and he hesitated and turned 
to put his hand on the shoulder of Max. Then he 
swung the young man round in such a way that 
his own back was turned to Carrie. Looking 
steadily and with a certain look of affectionate 
regard into his friend’s face, he formed with his 
lips and eyes a final warning against the girl. 
Then, with a nod, he went out, closing the door 
behind him. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


221 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE SWORD FALLS. 

When Max turned, he found that Carrie had re- 
treated within the door of the sitting-room. He 
followed her into the room. 

“ I hope he ’ll give us the full ten minutes,” said 
he, for I had no Ipncheon to-day, and when I ’m 
hungry I always get very cross. Is that your ex- 
perience ?” 

Carrie looked at the table with a strange smile. 

You ought to know,” said she. 

His face showed that he had not forgotten. 

Those biscuits !” said he. “ I remember. Does 
your granny treat you better now ? ” 

Carrie’s face grew gloomy and cold. And Max 
noticed that, thin as she had been when he saw her 
last, she was much thinner now. The outline of 
her cheek was pathetically pinched, almost sunken. 

“ No. Worse,” she said at last, in a low voice. 

“You don’t mean that she — starves you?” 

To his dismay, he saw the tears welling up in 


222 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


the girl’s blue eyes, which looked preternaturally 
large in her wasted face. 

Pretty nearly,” said she. 

Max stared at her for about the space of a second ; 
then he went behind her, put his hands lightly on 
her shoulders and inducted her into the chair Dud- 
ley had placed for himself at the dinner-table. 

“ It is evident,” said he, gravely, “ that Provi- 
dence has appointed me purveyor of food to you, 
for this is the second time, within a comparatively 
short acquaintance, that I have had the honor of 
providing you with a repast. This time it ’s quite 
in the manner of ‘ The Arabian JSFights,’ isn ’t it ?” 

It was indeed a fairy-tale banquet, this dinner of 
steak and chip potatoes, followed by meringues a la 
creme, and finishing up with bread and butter and 
cheese and celer3^ 

There was enough for two, the only drawback 
being a deficiency of plates, which Max put right,, 
in homely fashion, by eating his share from the 
dish. Such a tragedy it was to him to find a beauti- 
ful girl who was hungry, actually hungry from want 
of food, that the appetite he had talked so much 
about failed him, and he found it difficult to eat his 
share and to keep up the light tone of talk which 
he judged to be necessary to the situation. 

He wanted to ask her a hundred questions about 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


223 


the people at the wharf and the awful thing which 
had happened there ; but none of these subjects 
seemed appropriate to the dinner-table, and Max 
decided to leave them to another and a better op- 
portunity. 

In the meanwhile he was getting more forgetful 
of Dudley’s warning every moment. Carrie seemed 
to guess his feelings, and to be grateful for them. 
She said very little, but she listened and she 
laughed, and gave him such pretty, touching 
glances, such half -mournful, half-merry looks when 
she thought he was not looking, that by the time 
they came to the cheese he was in a state of in- 
fatuation, in which he forgot to notice what a very 
long ten minutes Dudley was giving them. 

He thought, as he watched Carrie in the lamp- 
light, that he had greatly underrated her attrac- 
tions on the occasion of their first meeting. She 
had been so deadly white, so pinched about the 
cheeks; while now there was a little trace of pink 
color under the skin ; and her blue eyes were 
bright and sparkling with enjoyment. 

And it struck him with a pang that she looked so 
lovely, so bewitching, because of the change from 
cold and hunger which, as he knew, and as she had 
acknowledged, were her usual portion. 

“ Shall we sit by the fire ?” asked he suddenly. 


224 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


And he jumped up from the table, and turned 
Dudley’s biggest and coziest arm-chair round toward 
the warmth and the glow. 

Carrie hesitated. She rose slowly from her 
chair, and took up from the side-table, on which 
Max had placed it, the shabby black cape. 

“ Oh, you needn’t be in such a hurry,” said Max. 
“ I dare say he’ll be a great deal more than the ten 
minutes he said he should take.” 

It was her action which had recalled Dudley to 
his mind. And, for the first time, as he uttered 
these words, a doubt sprang up as to his friend’s 
good faith. What if Dudley meant to give them 
both the slip, and to go off to the wharf by himself, 
after all ? 

Carrie’s eyes met his ; perhaps she guessed what 
was passing in his mind. 

: Oh, yes, he is sure to be longer than that,” said 

she at once ; and, putting her cape down again, she 
took the chair Max had placed for her, while he 
sat in the opposite one. 

It ’s beautiful to be warm !” cried she, softly, 
as she held out her hands to the blaze which Max 
had made. 

Then there was a long pause. Max had so much 
to say to her that he didn’t know where to begin. 
And in the meantime to sit near her and to watch 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


225 


the play of the firelight on her happy face was 
pleasant enough. But presently perceiving that 
she threw another uneasy glance in the direction 
of her cape, he broke the silence hastily. 

“ You said,’’ began he, abruptly, that you were 
not going back to the wharf. Where were you 
going, then ?” 

“ I don’t know,” said Carrie, after a pause. 

Her face had clouded again. Her manner had 
changed a little also ; it had become colder, more 
reserved. 

Do you mean that — really ? Or do you only 
mean that you don’t mean to tell me, that I have 
no business to ask ?” 

“ I mean just what I said — that I didn’t know.” 

‘‘ You are going to leave Mrs. Higgs and her 
friends, then ?” asked Max, in a tone between 
doubt and hope. 

“Yes.” 

She made this answer rather by a motion of the 
head than by her voice. 

“ Well, I am very glad to hear it — very glad.” 

“ Are you ? I’m not. Oh, it is dreadful, dread- 
ful to lose one’s home, any sort of home.” 

“ But could you call that a home ? A hole like 
that? Among people like this Mrs. Higgs and 
this Dick !” 


226 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


“ Oh, poor Dick ! If they had all been like him 
it would not have mattered.” 

“ What ! A pickpocket !” cried Max in disgust. 

“ What difference did, that make ? Do you sup- 
pose the wives and daughters of the men in the 
city, financiers and the rest, love them the less 
because they pass their lives trying to get the 
better of other people? Isn’t it just as dishonest 
to issue a false prospectus to get people to put 
their money into worthless companies as to steal a 
watch ? It ’s nonsense to pretend it isn’t.” 

Carrie spoke sharply. She had grown warm in 
defense of her felonious friend. 

Max thought a little before he answered. 

“ But you ’re not this man’s wife or his daughter.” 

Well, no. But he wanted to marry me ; and if 
he hadn ’t been caught yesterday, perhaps I should 
have let him.” 

“What?” 

‘^Don’t look so disgusted. He would have been 
kind to me.” 

“ And do you think you couldn’t find a better hus- 
band than a — than a pickpocket ?” 

“ He would have been honest if I ’d married 
him,” said Carrie, quietly. 

“ He says so, of course ; but he wouldn’t. A man 
says anything to get the girl he ’s fond of to promise. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


227 


to marry him. Do you think it 's possible to change 
the habits of years, of all a man’s life, perhaps, like 
that?” 

“ I know it would have been possible,” persisted 
she, obstinately. “ I know I could have worried 
him, and nagged at him, and worked for him, till I 
made him do what I wanted.” 

And Max saw in her face, as she looked solemnly 
at the fire, that dogged, steady resolution of the 
blue-eyed races. 

“ Well,” said he crovssly, “ then I ’m very glad 
he ’s been caught.” 

“ Ah !” cried she, quickly, you don’t know what 
it will lead to, though. He knows something, and 
if your friend, Mr. Horne, won’t try to get him off, 
why, he ’ll be sorry.” 

Max looked worried and thoughtful at this 
threat. 

I won’t believe,” said he, stoutly, that my 
friend had anything to do with— with what hap- 
pened at the place. It ’s monstrous ! — impossible !” 

Carrie said nothing. 

“ Who would believe this pack of thieves against 
a man like Dudley Horne ?” 

Carrie laughed cynically. 

Then why is he afraid ?” 

This indeed was the question which made the 


228 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


mystery inexplicable. What reason could Dudley 
have for wishing to hush up the matter unless he 
himself had brought about Edward Jacobs’s violent 
derth ? This was the old, old difficulty in which 
any discussion of the subject or any meditation on 
it always landed him. 

He got up from his chair and began to walk 
about the room. 

“ Why are you leaving Mrs. Higgs?” asked he at 
last, suddenly. 

Max was not without hope that the answer might 
give him a clue to something more. 

“ I couldn’t bear it any longer. She has been 
different lately. She has left me alone for days 
together, and besides — besides — she has been 
changed, unkind, since Christmas.” 

Now Max remembered that it was on Christmas 
Eve that he had met Mrs. Higgs in the barn at The 
Beeches ; and he wondered whether that amiable 
lady had visited upon Carrie her displeasure on 
finding that he had escaped alive from the wharf 
by the docks. 

“ I believe,” said he, suddenly, "‘that it was your 
precious Mrs. Higgs that murdered the man. I ’m 
quite sure she ’s capable of it, or of any other vil- 
lainy.” 

Carrie leaned forward and looked at him earnestly. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


229 


“ But what should he want to shelter Mrs. Higgs 
for, if she had done it ?” 

And to this Max could find no answer. 

“ And why, if he had nothing to do with the 
murder, should he be so much afraid of Mrs. Higgs 
that he steals away by himself to see her when she 
sends him a message ?” 

Max sprang up. 

‘‘ Steals away ! By himself !” faltered he. 

“ Why, yes. Did you really think he would come 
back ? Didn’t you know that the ten minutes he 
spoke of were only a blind, so that he could shake 
you off, and not make Mrs. Higgs angry by taking 
another man with him ? Surely, surely, you guessed 
that ! Surely, you knew that if the ten minutes 
had not been an excuse, he would have been back 
here long ago.” 

Max felt the blood surging to his head. The girl 
was right, of course. He leaned against the book- 
case, breathing heavily. 

“ You knew ! You guessed ! Why didn’t you — 
why didn’t you tell me ?” 

Carrie stood up, as much excited as he was. Her 
blue eyes flashed, her lips trembled as she spoke. 

“ What do I care — for him ?” she said under her 
breath. “ A man must take the risk of the things 
he does^ mustn’t he? But you — you had done 


230 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


nothing ; and — and you have been kind to me. I 
didn’t want you to go. I couldn’t let you go. So 
I tried to keep you. I didn’t want you to remember. 
And it was easy enough.” i 

Max felt a pang of keen self-reproach. Yes, it 
had been easy enough for a girl with a pretty face 
to make him forget his friend. He turned quickly 
toward the door. But Carrie moved even more 
rapidly, and by the time he reached it she was there 
before him. 

“ It ’s too late now,” she said in that deep voice 
of hers, which, when she was herself moved, was 
capable of imparting her own emotion to her 
hearers. “ He ’s been gone an hour. He ’ll be 
there by this time. What good could you do him 
by going ? There ’s an understanding between her 
and him. He ’ll be all right. Now you would 
not.” 

Max stared at the girl in perplexity. She spoke 
with confidence, with knowledge. A great dread 
on his friend’s account began to creep over him. 
Why should Dudley be safe where he himself was 
not, unless he were in league with the old hag ? 
Or, again, was it possible that Carrie — pretty, sweet- 
faced Carrie — was acting in concert with the gang, 
detaining him so that Dudley might be an easier 
prey to her accomplices ? 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


231 


As this suspicion crossed his mind, he, know- 
ing his own weakness, resolved to act without 
the hesitation which would be fatal to his pur- 
pose. 

Seizing her by the arm, he drew her almost 
roughly out of the way, and, opening the door, 
went out into the ante-room. 

But before he could open the outer door, Carrie 
had overtaken him and seized him by the arm in 
her turn. 

No, no,” said she, passionately. “ I will not let 
you go. You don’t know what you are rushing into ; 
you don’t know what I do.” 

“ What do you mean ?” 

“ That if you were to go into that house again, 
you wouldn’t leave it alive !” 

“ All the more reason,” said Max, struggling to 
free himself from the tenacious grasp of her fingers, 
which were a good deal stronger than he had sup- 
posed, “ why I should not let him go into such a 
place alone.” 

“ Well, if you go, you will take me,” said Carrie, 
almost fiercely. 

‘‘ Come along, then.” 

He had his hand on the door, when he noticed 
that she had left her cape in the room. 

Fetch your cloak,” said he, shortly. 


232 ^ 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


She hesitated. 

“ Give me your honor that you won’t go without 
me.” 

“ All right. I ’ll wait for you.” 

She disappeared into the sitting-room, leaving the 
door open, however. While she was gone, Max, 
still with his fingers on the handle of the door, 
heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. 
It was not Dudley’s tread, and, the sound being a 
common one enough. Max did not pay particular 
attention to it, and he was surprised when Carrie 
suddenly thrust forth her head through the sitting- 
room doorway, with a look of excitement and terror 
on her face. 

“ Listen !” said she, in a very low whispe-r. 

‘‘Well, it’s only some one going up the stairs,” 
said he, in a reassuring tone. 

Carrie shook her head emphatically. 

“ Coming, not going,” said she. “ And it ’s 'a 
policeman’s tread. Don’t you know that ?” 

Max grew rather cold. 

“Oh, nonsense !” said he, quickly. “What 
should — ” 

She stopped him by a rapid gesture, and at the 
same moment there was a ring at the bell. For a 
moment. Max, alarmed by the girl’s words, hesi- 
tated to open it. Carrie made a rapid gesture to 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


233 


him to do so, at the same time disappearing herself 
into the sitting-room. 

Max opened the door. 

A man in plain clothes stood outside, and at the 
head of the stairs behind him was a policeman in 
uniform. 

“ Mr. Dudley Horne ?” said the man. 

“ These are his rooms, but Mr. Horne is not 
here.” 

“You are a friend of his, sir ?” 

“Yes. My name is Wedmore.” 

If the man had had a momentary doubt about 
him, it was by this time dispelled. He stepped in- 
side the door. 

“I must have a look round, if you please, sir.” 
Max held his ground. “ I have a warrant for Mr. 
Horne’s arrest.” 

Max staggered back. And the man passed him 
and went in. 


234 


The Wharf by the Dotks. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

A S T R A N G E PAIR. 

As Carrie, with her feminine acuteness, had 
guessed, Dudley Horne had never had any inten- 
tion of returning to his chambers for her and Max. 

On the contrary, he was delighted to have the 
opportunity of slipping quietly away, and of evad- 
ing the solicitude of his friend, as well as the so- 
ciety of Carrie herself, of whom he had a strong 
but not unnatural mistrust. 

No sooner did he reach the street than he hailed 
a hansom and directed the driver to take him to 
Limehouse, and to lose no time. Then he sat back 
in the cab, staring at the reins, while the haggard 
look on his face grew more intense and the eager 
expression of expectancy and dread of something 
impending became deeper every moment. 

During the last fortnight, Max, having had his 
thoughts occupied with his own affairs, had not had 
so much time for the consideration of those of his 
friend ; and he had lost sight altogether of the 


The Wharf by - the Docks. 


235 


theory that Dudley was mad. But if he could have 
seen Dudley now, with the wild look in his eyes, 
could have noted the restless movements of his 
hands, the twitching of his face, the impatience 
with which he now leaned forward, now back, as if 
alternately urging the horse forward and holding 
him back. Max would have felt bound to admit that 
the case for the young barrister’s insanity was very 
strong. 

As soon as the hansom began to thread the narrow 
streets which lie between Commercial Road and 
the riverside, Dudley sprang out, paid the man his 
fare, and walked off at a rapid pace. It was a frosty 
night, and the ill-clad women who shuffled past him 
looked pinched and miserable. Even they, with 
cares enough of their own on their shoulders, turned 
to look at him as he passed. There was a glare in 
his black eyes, an uncanny something in his walk, 
in his look, which made them watch him and 
wonder who he was, and where he was going to. 

But by the time he had reached the riverside 
street to which his steps were directed, even a 
chance passer-by was a rarity ; and the gas-lamps 
had become so few and far between that no notice 
would have been taken of him if the traffic had been 
greater. 

His footsteps echoed in the silent street until he 


236 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


reached the wooden door which was the entrance 
by night to Plumtree Wharf. 

The door was shut, and Dudley, apparently sur- 
prised by the circumstance, gave it an impatient 
shake. Then he heard a slight sound within which 
told him of the approach of some living creature, 
and the next moment the door was opened a few 
inches, and the face of Mrs. Higgs appeared at the 
aperture. 

She uttered a little mocking laugh when she saw 
who her visitor was and let him in without ajuy other 
comment. 

Dudley strode in, with a frown of displeasure on 
ills face, and waited under the piles of timber 
while Mrs. Higgs relocked the door. There was a 
lamp just outside the wooden boarding which shut 
the wharf in, and by the light of it Dudley got 
a good look at the old woman’s face before she re- 
joined him ; and it seemed to him that the placid 
expression she usually wore had given place to a 
look more sinister, more repellent. She passed 
him, still without a word, but with a nod which he 
took for an invitation to him to follow her. They 
passed through the little wash-house into the inner 
room, and Mrs. Higgs seated herself by the fire, 
and gave her visitor another nod to imply that he 
might be seated also. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


237 


But Dudley was not in a friendly mood. He 
would not even come near the hearth, but re- 
mained close to the door by which he had entered, 
and gave a searching look round the room. 

The apartment was so small and so bare that it 
was not difficult to take stock of its contents, and 
Mrs. Higgs laughed ironically. 

“ Isn’t the place furnished to your liking?” she 
asked in a mocking tone. “ Are you looking for 
the sofas and the sideboards and the silver and the 
plate ?”^ 

Dudley cast at the old woman a look which was 
more eloquent than he knew of hatred and disgust. 

“ No,” said he, shortly. “ I was looking to see 
whether any of your precious pals were about.” 

Mrs. Higgs drew her chair nearer to the deal 
table, and leaning on it with her head resting in 
her hands, stared at him malignantly. 

“ My precious pals ! My precious pals !” muttered 
she to herself in an angry tone. “ That ’s the way 
he talks to me ! To me, he owes so much to ! Ah ! 
Ah! Ah!” 

These three last ejaculations were uttered with 
so much suppressed passion, and there gleamed in 
her dull eyes such a dull look of stupid ferocity, 
that Dudley withdrew his attention from the cup- 
board and walls and transferred it wholly to her. 


23 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


After a pause, during whicli the two seemed to 
measure each other with cautious eyes, he said, ab- 
ruptly : 

“ Do 5^ou know why I have come here to-night ?” 

“ To show me a little gratitude at last, perhaps,” 
suggested Mrs. Higgs, sharply. “ To do your duty 
—yes, it ’s no more than your duty, you know, to do 
what I tell you — and to help yourself in helping 
me. That ’s true, isn’t it ?” 

Dudley stared at her in silence for a few moments . 
before he answered : ^ 

“ Duty is an odd word to use — a very odd word. 
But we won’t waste time discussing that. You sent 
a message to me by a girl this evening?” 

Mrs. Higgs nodded. 

“You want me to defend one of the rascals who 
make this place their hole, their den ? ” 

Again Mrs. Higgs signified assent. 

“ Well, I shall do nothing of the kind. I have 
done more than enough for you already. I have 
offered you the means of taking yourself off and of 
living like a decent creature. I have done every- 
thing you could expect, and more. But I will not 
be mixed up with you and the gang you choose to 
make your friends ; and I will not lift a finger to save 
your friend the pickpocket from the punishment 
he deserves.” 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


239 


Dudley spoke with decision, but he made no im- 
pression worth speaking of upon his hearer. She 
continued to look at him with the same expression 
of dull malignity ; and when she spoke, it was 
without vehemence. 

“ Well,’’ she began, leaning forward a little more 
and keeping her eyes fixed upon him, “ perhaps 
you won’t have the chance of defending anybody 
long. There’s been a woman about here lately, 
making inquiries and hunting about, and one of 
these fine days she may light upon something 
that ’ll put her upon your track.” 

“ What do you mean ? Whom do you mean ?” 

“ Why, Edward Jacobs’s widow, of course. She 
had an idea where to look, you see.” 

Dudley could not hide the fact that he was much 
disturbed by this intelligence. 

“ Poor woman ! Poor woman ! Who can blame 
her ?” said he at last, more to himself than to Mrs. 
Higgs, “ I ’ve done what I could for her, sent her 
money every week since — ” 

To his amazement, Mrs. Higgs suddenly inter- 
rupted him, bringing her fist down upon the table 
with a sounding thump. 

“ You fool !” screamed she; “ You— fool!* You’ve 
given yourself away f You deserve all you ’ll cer- 
tainly get ! Do you suppose a Jewess /wouldn’t 


240 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


have wits enough to trace you by that ? By the 
fact that you sent her money ?” 

But I sent it anonymously,” said Dudley. 

“ That doesn’t matter. Money ? Postal-orders, I 
suppose ?” 

Yes.” 

“Well, they can be traced. Oh, you fool, you 
wooden-headed fool !” 

There was a pause. Mrs. Higgs appeared to have 
exhausted herself in vituperation, while Dudley 
considered this new aspect of the affair in silence. 

“ Well,” said he at last, “ if she does trace me, 
who will be the sufferer, do you suppose — you 
or I?” 

“ Why, you, you, you, of course !” retorted the 
old woman with heat. “ You will be hanged, while 
I can bury myself like a mole in the ground and be 
forgotten, lost sight of altogether.” 

She said this with unctuous satisfaction, and 
Dudley gave her a glance of horror. 

“ And what particular pleasure will it give you, 
even supposing such an outcome possible, to see 
me hanged ?” 

The old woman’s indecent delight faded grad- 
ually from her face as she looked at him. Then 
she rose slowly from her chair and came a step 
nearer to Dudley, who instinctively recoiled from 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


241 


the threatened touch. She noticed this movement, 
and resented it fiercely. 

“ Why do you go back ? Why do you want to 
get away? Always to get away?** she asked, 
angrily. “ That ’s what makes me so mad ! Why 
do you try to get out of the business in the way 
you do? Sneaking out of it, as if it had nothing to 
do with you ? Why don’t you throw in your lot 
with me and go away with me, as I wished you to, 
as you once were ready to do ?” 

Dudley looked searchingly into the wrinkled face. 

‘‘ I was never ready to go,” said he. “ I did affect 
to be ready. I was ready to go as far as Liverpool 
with you, to get you safely out of the country, out 
of danger to me and to yourself. But I should 
never have gone farther than that. I never meant 
to. I would run any risk rather than that.” 

Mr. Higgs never blinked. Staring steadily up 
into his face, with a malignity more pronounced 
than ever, she asked, in a mocking tone : 

“ Why ? Why ?” 

Dudley was silent. 

Mrs. Higgs laughed, and shook her head with a 
look of unspeakable cunning. 

‘‘You needn’t answer,” said she, dryly, “for I 
know the reason. You won’t leave England because 
of a girl.” 


242 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


Dudley did not start, but the quiver which passed 
over his features betrayed him. 

“ Ha, ha !” laughed Mrs. Higgs. “ It’s not much 
use telling ine a fib when I want to know anything. 
You wouldn’t own up, sb I went ferreting on my 
own account, and I found out what I wanted. You ’re 
in love with a girl named Wedmore — Doreen Wed- 
more — and it ’s on her account that you won’t leave 
England, and throw in your lot with me, like a 
man !*’ 

Dudley’s face had grown gray with fear. When 
he spoke it was in a changed tone. He had lost 
his confidence, his defiant robustness. He almost 
seemed to be begging for mercy, as he an- 
swered : 

“ I don’t deny it. I don’t deny anything. I did 
care for a girl ; I do now. But I have given her up. 
I was bound to, with this ghastly business hanging 
to my heels. I shall never see her again.” 

Mrs. Higgs cut in with decision : 

“No, that you won’t. I ’ll answer for it !” 

Dudley looked at her, but did not dare to speak. 
There was something ih the spiteful tones of her 
voice, when she mentioned Doreen, which filled 
him with vague dread. It was in a subdued and 
conciliatory voice that he presently tried to turn 
the conversation to another subject. / 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


Hi 


“ Who was the girl you sent this evening, the 
girl who brought your message ?” 

“ Nobody of any consequence,’’ answered Mrs. 
Higgs, as if the subject was not to her taste. “ A 
girl who lives here. We call her Carrie.” 

“ And her other name?” 

His tone betrayed his suspicions. Mrs. Higgs 
shrugged her shoulders. 

‘‘ What does that matter to you ? She is your 
half-sister, but I don’t suppose you wish to claim 
relationship?” 

“ Does she know— anything ?” 

“ Something, perhaps. Not too much, I think. 
But it doesn’t matter. She is a weak, namby-pamby 
creature, and I’m sick of the sight of her white 
face. So I ’ve got rid of her.” 

“How?” 

“ I’ve given her notice to quit. I don’t expect 
her back again.” 

“ And aren’t you afraid that she may give infor- 
mation ?” 

“ Ah ! Your solicitude is for yourself, eh ? No, 
she’ll hold her tongue for her own sake.” And Mrs. 
Higgs’s features relaxed into a menacing grin. 
“She’s seen enough of me to know she must be 
careful !” 

Dudley moved restlessly. • 


244 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


“ Isn’t it rough on the girl to bring her up like 
this ? In this hole, among these human vermin ? 
She seems to have some decent instincts.” 

Mrs. Higgs frowned. 

“ She was brought up as well as she had any right 
to expect,” said she, shortly ; “ educated fairly well 
into the bargain. She has not had much to com- 
plain of.” 

Dudley made no answer to this for some minutes, 
and during this time Mrs. Higgs kept him steadily 
under observation, not a movement of his hands, a 
change of his expression, escaping her. At last he 
looked at her, and seemed to be struck by some- 
thing in her face. He put his fingers upon the 
handle of the door as he turned to go. 

Well,” said he — his voice sounded hollow, cold 
— “ I have said what I came to say. I need not stay 
here any longer. I don’t wish to meet any of your 
friends.” 

Mr. Higgs got slowly to her feet. 

My friends !” cried she, angrily. “ My friends ! 
They ’ve done you no harm, at any rate ; while 
your friends come spying round the place, poking 
their noses into business which is none of theirs.” 

Dudley’s hand dropped to his side. 

“ Do you mean Max Wedmore ?” said he, earn- 
estly. “ Why, he is the son of the man who has 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


245 


been a father to me, who brought me up, who saved 
me from becoming the outcast that poor girl is — 

Mrs. Higgs interrupted him fiercely. 

“ That ’ll do. I ’m sick of the very name of Wed- 
more. They ’ve had their own interests to serve, 
whatever they ’ve done, depend upon it. And if 
he comes fooling round here again, I ’ll treat him as 
you — ” 

Dudley broke in sharply, stopping her as her 
voice was growing loud and her gestures threaten- 
ing. After a short pause, -during which she 
watched him as keenly as ever, he asked, in a 
hoarse whisper : 

“ What did you do with — him f Did anybody 
help you — any of your friends here ? Or did 
you — ” 

Mrs. Higgs cut him short with an ugly laugh. 
At the mention of the dead man her face had 
changed, and a strange gleam of mingled cunning 
and ferocity came into her small, light eyes. 

Come and see — come and see,” mumbled she, 
as she took up the candlestick from the table and 
shuffled across the room to the door which opened 
into the disused shop. 

Dudley hesitated a moment ; indeed, he glanced 
at the door by which he stood as if he felt inclined 
to make his escape without further delay. But 


246 


The Wharf by the Docks^ 


Mrs. Higgs, slow as she seemed, turned quickly 
enough to divine his purpose. 

“ No,” said she, sharply, “not that way. This !” 

Seizing him by the arm, she thrust a key into the 
lock of the door with her other hand, and half led, 
half pushed him into the dark front room. 

Dudley was seized with a nervous tremor when 
he found himself inside the room. By the light of 
the candle the woman held, he could see at a 
glance into every corner of the bare, squalid apart- 
ment — could see the stains on the dirty walls, the 
cracks and defects in the dilapidated ceiling, even 
the thick clusters of cobwebs that hung in the 
corners. Having taken in all these details in a 
very rapid survey, he looked down at the floor, at 
the very center of the bare, grimy boards, with a 
flxed stare of horror which the old woman, by 
passing the candle rapidly backward and forward 
before his eyes, tried vainly to divert. 

Even she, however, seemed to be impressed by 
the hideous memory the room called up in her, for 
she spoke, not in her usual gruffly indifferent tones, 
but in a husky whisper. 

“Tst — tst !” she began, testily. “Haven’t you 
got over that yet ? One Jew the less in the world ! 
What is it to trouble about? Be a man — come, be 
a man ! See, this is how I got rid of him.” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


247 


As she spoke, Mrs. Higgs suddenly dropped Dud- 
ley’s arm, which she had been clutching tenaciously, 
and hobbling away from him at an unusual rate of 
speed for her, she went back to the door, turned 
the key in the lock, and then withdrew it and 
dropped it into her pocket. This action Dudley 
was too much absorbed to notice. 

Then she made her way at her usual pace, lean- 
ing heavily on the stout stick she was never with- 
out, toward the corner where the heap of lumber 
lay, on the left-hand side of what had once been the 
fireplace. Here she stooped, lifted a couple of 
bricks and a broken box-lid from the floor, and then 
easily raised the board on which they had stood, 
and beckoned to Dudley to come nearer. He did 
so, slowly, and with evident reluctance. 

“ Look here,” said she, pointing down to the space 
where the board had been. “ Look down. Don’t 
be afraid,” she added, in a jeering tone. “ There’s 
nothing there to frighten you. See for yourself.” 

Dudley stooped, and looking through the small 
opening available, saw that there was a space hol- 
lowed out underneath. 

“And you put him there — under the boards?” 
said Dudley, in a low voice. “ But it was in the 
water that the body was found — in the river out- 
side.” 


248 The Wharf by the Docks, 


“ Why, yes, so it was,” said the old woman, 
slowly, as she lifted the board out of its place alto- 
gether, and displacing also the one next to it, de- 
scended through the opening she had made. 

Dudley watched her with fascinated eyes. Ap- 
parently the space below was not very deep, for 
she had only disappeared as far as the knees down- 
ward, and then knelt down, and for a moment was 
lost to sight altogether. She appeared to be strug- 
gling with something, and Dudley, consumed with 
horror, took a step back as he watched. 

Presently she looked up. Her face was in 
shadow, but he could see that she was panting, as 
if with some great exertion. 

“ Get back ! Stand in the middle of the room 
there, if you ’re afraid,” said she, mockingly. “ Right 
out of my reach, mind, where I can’t get at 
you.”. 

Instinctively Dudley obeyed, stepping back into 
the little patch of light thrown by the candle. 

He had scarcely reached the middle of the room 
when he felt the boards under his feet give way. 
Staggering, he tried to retrace his steps, to reach 
the end of the room where the old woman, now 
again on a level with him, was watching him in 
silence. 

But as he moved towards her she made a spring 


The Wharf hy the Docks. 


249 


at him, and forcing him back with so much sudden- 
ness that he, quite unprepared, was unable to resist 
her attack, she flung him to the ground in the very 
middle of the room. 

As he fell he felt the flooring give way under 
him. The next moment he was struggling, like a 
rat in a well, in deep water. 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE PREY OF THE RIVER. 

Help ! Help !” shouted Dudley. “ Do you want 
to drown me ?” 

Great as the shock was of finding himself flung 
suddenly into what he supposed was a flooded cellar, 
Dudley did not at first believe that the old woman 
had any worse intention than that of playing him 
an ugly and malicious trick. 

But as he uttered this question he looked up, and 
saw her face half a dozen feet above him, wearing 
an expression of fiendish malignity which froze his 
blood. 

She was holding the candle so that she might see 
his face, and as he kept himself afloat in the small 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


250 


space available — for he had no room to strike out, 
and no foothold on the slimy earthen sides — he be- 
gan to understand that she was in grim, deadly 
earnest, and that the place where the dead body of 
Edward Jacobs had been concealed was to be his 
own grave. 

Then he did not cry out. He saw that he would 
only be wasting his breath ; that there was no mercy 
in the hard-light eyes, in the lines of the wicked, 
wrinkled mouth. ■ 

He made a struggle to climb up one side of the 
pit in which he found himself ; but the soft earth, 
slimy with damp, slipped and gave way under him. 
He tore out a hole with his fingers, then another, 
and another above that. And all the while she 
watched him without a word, apparently without a 
movement. 

But just as he came to a point in his ascent from 
which he might hope to make a spring for the 
top, she raised her thick stick and dealt him a blow 
on the head which sent him, with a splash and a 
gurgling cry, back into the water. 

He saw strange lights dancing before his eyes. 
He heard weird noises thundering in his ears, and 
above them all a chuckling laugh, like the merri- 
ment of a demon, as the boards of the displaced 
flooring were drawn slowly up by a cord from 


The Wharf by the Docks, ' 251 


above until they closed over his head, shutting him 
down. 

****** 

When the police made their descent upon Dud- 
ley’s chambers, Max, after giving his name and ad- 
dress, was allowed to go away without hindrance. 

He wanted Carrie to go with him, but as she per- 
sistently held down her head and refused to look 
at him, he came to the conclusion that she had her 
own reasons for wishing him to go away without 
her. 

So he went slowly down into the Strand, wonder- 
ing whether he dared to go to the wharf to try to 
warn Dudley, or whether he would be drawing 
down danger upon his friend’s head by doing so. 
For although he could not ascertain that he was 
himself shadowed, he thought that it might very 
possibly be the case. 

He had reached the corner of Arundel Street, 
when he found that Carrie was beside him. She 
was panting, out of breath. 

“ Hello !” said he. 

“I’ve been such a round!” said she. “ Just to 
see whether they were following me.. But they 
weren’t. I guessed you ’d come this way, and I 
went down by the embankment and up to try to 
jneet you, Are they after you ?’’ 


252 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


“ I don’t think so. Dare we — ” 

“ Wharf ? Yes, I think we may. By the way, 
I ’ll show you.” 

She took him across Waterloo Bridge, where 
they took a cab and traversed southward to a point 
at which she directed the driver to stop. 

On the way. Max, from his corner of the hansom, 
watched the girl furtively. For a long time there 
was absolute silence between them. Then he 
came close to her suddenly, and peered into her 
face. 

“ Carrie,” said he, “ I want you to marry me.” 

Now Max had been some time making up his 
mind to put this proposition — some minutes, that 
is to say. He had been turning the matter over in 
his brain, and had imagined the blushing, trembling 
astonishment with which the lonely girl would re- 
ceive his most unexpected proposal. 

But the astonishment was on his side, not on 
hers ; for Carrie only turned her head a little, 
scarcely looking at him and staring out again in 
front of her immediately, remarked in the coolest 
manner in the world : 

“ Marry you ! Oh, yes, certainly. Why not ?” 

Max was taken aback, and Carrie, at last stealing 
a glance at him, perceived this. She gave a pretty 
little kindly laugh, which made him expect that 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


253 


she would say something more tender, more en- 
couraging. 

But she didn’t. 

Turning her head away again, she went on quietly 
laughing to herself, until Max, not unnaturally 
irritated by this acceptance of his offer, threw 
himself back in his corner and tried to laugh 
also. 

“It ’s a very good joke, isn’t it — an offer of mar- 
riage ?” said he at last, in an offended tone. 

“Very,” assented Carrie at once. “About the 
best I ever heard.” 

And she went on laughing. 

“ And I suppose,” went on Max, unable to hide 
his annoyance, “ that if I were to tell you it was 
not a joke at all, but that I spoke in downright 
earnest, you would laugh still more ?” 

“ Well, I think I should.” 

“ Well, laugh away, then. I w’as in earnest. I 
meant what I said. I was idiot enough to suppose 
you might find marrying me a better alternative 
than wandering about without any home. Extra- 
ordinary, wasn’t it?” 

“ Well,” answered Carrie, subduing her mirth a 
little and speaking in that deep-toned voice she 
unconsciously used when she was moved — the 
voice which Max found in itself so moving— “ I 


254 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


should say it was extraordinary, if I didn’t know 
you.” 

“ If you didn’t know me for an idiot, I Suppose 
you mean,” said Max, coldly, with much irritation. 

“ Not quite that,” replied she, in the same tone 
as before. “ I meant if I hadn’t known you to be 
one of those good-natured people who speak before 
they think.” 

Max sat up angrily. 

“ I have not spoken without thinking,” said he, 
quickly. ‘‘ I have done nothing but think of you 
ever since I first saw you ; and my asking you to 
marry me is the outcome of my thinking.” 

‘‘ Well, if I were you, I should think to better 
purpose than that.” 

Her tone was rather puzzling to Max. There 
was mockery in it ; but there was something more. 
He came to the conclusion, after a moment’s con- 
sideration of it, and of the little tha? he could see 
of her face, that she felt more than she chose 
to show. So he put his arm around her and caught 
one of her hands. 

“ Look here, Carrie,” said he in a whisper. “ I 
understand you. I know how you feel. I know 
you think it ’s neither decent nor wise to ask a girl 
to be your wife when you ’ve only seen her twice. 
Lut just consider the circumstances, If I don’t get 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


255 


you to say what I want you to say now, I shall lose 
sight of you to-night and never seo you again. 
Now, I couldn’t bear that — I couldn’t, Carrie. I 
never saw a girl like you ; I never met one who 
made me feel as you make me feel. And you like 
me, too. You wouldn’t have .troubled yourself 
about my going to -the wharf if you hadn’t cared. 
It’s no use denying that you like me.” 

Carrie turned upon him with energy. 

“Well, I don’t deny it, if you care to hear that,” 
said she, quickly. “ I do like you. How could I 
help it ? I liked you the moment I first saw you ; 
I shouldn’t have spoken to you if I hadn’t ; I should 
have been afraid. But what difference does that 
make ? Do you think I ’m a fool ? Do you think 
I don’t know that this feeling you have — and I 
believe in it, mind — is just because I ’m a new sen- 
sation to you, who are a spoiled child — nothing 
more nor less. Oh, don’t let ’s talk about it ; it ’s 
silly.” 

She had wrenched herself impatiently away from 
him, and now sat upright, frowning and looking 
straight in front of her as before. 

Max, not finally rebuffed, but rather puzzled what 
to make of this form' of repulse, was silent for a few 
moments. 

“Well, if you won’t let me talk about that,” he 


256 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


said at last, will you promise to let me know where 
you are going to, so that I shan’t have to lose sight 
of you ? Come, you like me well enough to agree 
to that, don’t you ?” 

Carrie hesitated. 

“ I told you,” she. said at last, in a low voice, that 
I didn’t know myself where I was going. Have you 
forgotten that?” 

“ But it wasn’t true. You said it to put me oif. 
You must know !” 

“ Well, I shan’t tell you. There !” 

“Why?” 

“ Because it would be the beginning of what I 
don’t want and won’t have. Because you ’d come 
and see me, and I shouldn’t have the heart to say 
you mustn’t come ; and in the end, if you persisted, 
I shouldn’t have the heart to stop you from making 
a fool of yourself.” 

“ How, making a fool of myself ?” 

“Why, by marrying me. Now don’t pretend 
you don’t know it ’s true. Marrying me would be 
just ruin — ruin ! Oh, I know ! What would your 
family say, and be right in saying ? That you ’d 
been got hold of by a girl nobody knew anything 
about, without any parents or friends, and who 
came from nobody knew where.” 

“ Ah, but when they knew you—” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


257 


“ They ’d think less of me than they did before.” 

“ Nonsense ! When they saw how beautiful you 
are and well educated and refined, they wouldn’t 
believe you came from such a place as Limehouse.” 

Carrie smiled. 

“ I seem refined to you, because you didn’t expect 
much where you found me. Put me beside your 
sisters and their friends, and I should be shy and 
awkward enough. No, I will not listen, and I want 
you to tell the driver to stop here.” 

Whether this was the point she had proposed to 
reach or whether she wanted to cut short the sub- 
ject, Max could not tell. But as the hansom stopped 
she sprang out and led the way hurriedly in the 
direction of the river. She knew her way about on 
this side of the river as well as on the other, for 
she Wbnt straight to the water’s edge, got into a 
boat which was moored there with a dozen others, 
and, with a nod to a man with a pipe in his mouth 
who was loafing near the spot, she directed Max to 
jump in, and seized one oar while he took the 
other. 

“ If we go from this side,” she said, “ we can 
make sure we’re not followed, at all events.” 

In the darkness they began to row across the 
river, where the traffic had practi^lly ceased for 
the night. 


25S 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


Threading their way between the barges, the 
great steam traders, with their tigly square hulks 
standing high out of the water, and the lesser craft 
that clustered about the larger like a swarm of bees 
round the hive, they came out upon the gray 
stream, slowly leaving behind one dim shore, with 
its gloomy wharves and warehouses, and nearing 
the other. The London lights looked dim and 
blurred through the mist. 

As they drew near the wharf, Carrie jerked her 
head in the direction of the little ugly cluster of 
buildings which Max remembered so well. 

“ There ’s a passage under there,” she said in a 
whisper, leaning forward on her oar, “ through 
which they let the dead body of the man — you 
know — out into the river. It ’s just near here.” 

Max shuddered, and at the same moment there 
burst from the girl’s lips a hoarse cry. 

Max turned sharply, and saw that she was staring 
down into the water. 

“ Look ! Look there !” whispered she, gasping, 
trembling. 

“ What is it?” cried he. 

But even as he asked, he knew that the dark 
object he saw floating in the water was the body of 
a man. 

By a dexterous movement of her oar, Carrie had 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


259 


brought the boat alongside the black mass, and 
then, with the boat-hook, which she used with an 
evidently practiced hand, she drew the body close. 

Max, sick with horror, leaned over just as Carrie’s 
exertion’s brought the face of the man to view. 

“ He ’s dead !” cried he, hoarsely. “ It ’s another 
murder by those vile wretches in there !” 

An exclamation burst from the girl’s lips. 

“ Look at him ! Look at his face ! Who is he ?” 
whispered she, with trembling lips. 

Max looked, putting his hand under the head and 
lifting it out of the water. 

Then, with a great shout, he tore at the body, 
clutching it, trying to drag it into the boat. 

Great Heaven ! It’s Dudley !” 


26 o 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


CHAPTER XXL 

A DUBIOUS REFUGE. 

The night was clammy and cold. The fog was 
growing thicker, blacker. And the water of the 
Thames, as Max plunged his hand into it, strug- 
gling to raise the body of his friend, was ice-cold 
to the touch. 

Carrie had seized her oar again, and was bringing 
the boat’s head rapidly round, right under the stern 
of a barge which was moored close to Plumtree 
Wharf. 

“ Hold him ; don’t let him go !” cried sh^, im- 
periously. “ But don’t try to drag him into the 
boat until I get her alongside. You can’t do it with- 
out help. And if you could you’d pull the boat 
over.” 

The caution was necessary. Max had lOvSt his 
head, and was making' frantic efforts to raise the 
body of his friend over the boat’s' side. 

But he may be alive still ! And if there ’s a 
chance — oh, if there ’s the least chance — ” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


261 


“ There ’ll be none if you don’t do as I tell you !” 
cried Carrie, tartly. 

By this time a lad on board the barge was looking 
over the side at them, not seeing much, however, 
in the gloom. Carrie whistled twice. 

“ Hello !” replied he, evidently recognizing a 
signal he was used to. 

“ Is that Rob ?” 

Yes.” 

“ Lower a rope, and hold on like a man. Bob. 
We ’ve got a man here drowned or half-drowned ; 
and we want to get him on the wharf in a twink- 
ling.” 

“ Right’ you are.” 

The next moment the lad had lowered a rope 
over the side of the barge, and Carrie directed Max 
to pass it round the body of his friend. Then, she 
giving the orders as before, Bob from the barge 
above and Max from the boat below raised the body 
out of the water. Carrie had brought the little 
boat close to the barge, and held it in place with 
the boat-hook until the difficult task was safely ac- 
complished, and the body of Dudley Horne laid 
upon the deck of the barge. 

“ Now,” said she to Max, “ get up and help Bob 
to carry him ashore.” 

Max, who was speechless with grief and as help- 


262 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


less as a child in these new and strange circum- 
stances, obeyed her docilely, and climbed to the 
deck of the barge. 

“ Now, Bob,” went on Carrie, as vShe seized the 
second oar and prepared to row away, “ carry him 
into the kitchen — you know your way — as fast as 
you can. And lay him down before the fire, if 
there is a fire ; if not, make one. Sharp ’s the word, 
mind !” 

“ All right, missus.” 

Max looked down. Already she had disappeared 
in the gloom, and only the muffled sound of the 
oars as they dripped on the water told him that she 
had not yet gone far away. 

Suddenly he felt a rough pull at his arm. 

“ Come on, mister !” cried Bob, briskly. “ She 
said, ^ Sharp is the word.’ And when she says a 
thing she means it, you bet your life.” 

Max pulled himself together and turned quickly, 
ashamed of his own lack of vigor in the face of 
Carrie’s intelligence and energy. Bob and he 
raised the body of Dudley and carried it across the 
plank to the wharf, where Bob, who knew his way 
about there, led the way to the door which Max re- 
membered so well. 

It was open, and they passed through the out- 
house, meeting no one^ to the kitchen, which wag 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


263 


was also deserted. There they laid Dudley on the 
hearth, as Carrie had directed, and Bob proceeded 
to rake up the fire, which had died down to a few 
embers. 

Meanwhile Max had taken off some of Dudley’s 
clothes, and began to apply friction with his hands 
to the inanimate body. He had scarcely begun, 
when Carrie came in with an armful of dry towels 
and a couple of pillows. 

‘‘ He is dead, quite dead !” cried Max, hoarsely. 

Carrie never even looked at him. Placing her- 
self at once on her knees behind Dudley’s head, 
she curtly directed Max to raise the upper part of 
his body, and slipped the two pillows, one on the 
top of the other, under the shoulders of the uncon- 
scious'man. 

“Now,” said she, “ go on with your rubbing — rub 
with all your might ; and you. Bob, bring in a couple 
of big stone-bottles you ’ll find in the wash-house, 
fill them with hot water from the boiler, wrap them 
up in something, and put one to his feet and the 
other to the side that ’s away from the fire.” 

While she spoke she was working hard in the en- 
deavor to restore respiration, alternately drawing 
Dudley’s arms up above his head and laying them 
against his sides, with firm and steady move- 
ments. 


264 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


For a long time all their efforts seemed to be use- 
less. Max, indeed, had little or no hope from the 
first. He still worked on, however, perseveringly, 
but with despair in his heart, until he heard a sharp 
sound, like a deep sigh, from Carrie’s lips. 

She had detected a movement, the slightest in 
the world, but still a movement, in the senseless 
body. With straining eyes she now watched, that 
her own movements might coincide with the 
natural ones which Dudley had begun to make, 
and that real breathing might gradually take the 
place of the artificial. 

“ Let me do it. Let me help you,” cried Max, 
who saw the strained look of utter fatigue which 
Carrie wore in spite of her excitement. 

“ No, no ; I dare not. I must go on !” cried the 
girl, without lifting her eyes. 

And presently another cry escaped her lips, a cry 
of joy. 

“ He is alive !” 

“ Thank God !” 

The tears sprang to the eyes of Max. It was 
more than he had hoped. 

“ A doctor ! Shall I fetch a doctor ?” said he 

Carrie shook her head. 

“ A doctor could do no more than we Ve done,” 
said she. “ He ’ll be all right now — well enough to 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


265 


be got away, at all events. And the wound on his 
head isn’t much, I think.” 

“ Wound on his head !” 

Yes. It saved his life, most likely. Prevented 
his getting so much water into his lungs. Stunned 
him, you see.” 

Something like a sigh from the patient stopped 
her and directed the attention of them all to him. 
Bob, who had been standing in the background, 
almost as much excited as the others, came a few 
steps nearer. There was a moment of intense, eager 
expectancy, and then Dudley half opened his eyes. 

Max uttered a deep sob and glanced at Carrie. 
She was deadly pale, and the tears were standing 
in her eyes. 

“ You ’ve saved him !” said Max, hoarsely. 

The sound of his voice seemed to rouse Dudley, 
who looked at him with a vacant stare, and then 
let his eyelids drop again. 

“So glad, old chap — so glad to — to see you your- 
self again !” whispered Max, huskily. 

But Dudley was not himself. He looked up 
again, then tried to smile, and at last turned his 
head abruptly and seemed to be listening 

Carrie beckoned to Max and spoke low in his ear. 

“ You ’d better take him away from herd as 
quickly as you can, for half a dozen reasons.” 


266 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


Max nodded, but looked doubtful. 

“ He ’s ill,” said he. “ How shall I get him away ? 
And where shall I take him to ?” 

“ Down to your father’s house ” answered she at 
once. 

Max looked rather startled. 

“ But — you know — the police !” muttered he, 
almost inaudibly. “ Won’t that be the very first 
place they’d come to — my home ?’* 

“ Never mind that. You must risk it. He ’s 
going to be ill, I think, and he can’t be left here. 
Surely you know that.” 

She gave a glance round which made Max 
shiver. 

“ And how am I to get him all that way to- 
night ? The last train has gone hours ago.” 

“ Take him by road, then. We ’ll get a carriage 
— a conveyance of some sort or other — at once. I ’ll 
send Bob.” 

She turned to the lad and gave him some direc- 
tions, in obedience to which he disappeared. Then 
she turned fiercely to Max. 

“ Don’t you see,” said she, “ that if he wakes up 
and finds himself here, after what ’s happened, it ’ll 
about settle him ?” 

The words sent a shudder through Max. 

After what ’s happened !” repeated he, with 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


267 


stammering tongue. “What was it? Who did 
it?” 

But, instead of answering, Carrie threw herself 
down beside Dudley, who was now rapidly recov- 
ering strength, although he hardly seemed to under- 
stand where he was or by whom he was being 
tended. 

“ Do you feel all right now ?” she asked, cheer- 
fully. 

He looked at her with dull eyes. 

“ Oh, yes,” said he. “ But I — I don ’t remember 
what — ” 

“ Take a drink of this,” interrupted Carrie, 
quickly, as she put to his lips a flask of brandy 
which Bob had fetched. “ You ’ve got to take a long 
drive, and you want something to warm you first.” 

“ A drive ! A long drive !” 

Dudley repeated the words as if he hardly 
understood their meaning. But he was not satis- 
fied, and as he sipped the brandy he looked at her 
curiously. His next words, however, were a 
criticism on the restorative. 

“ What vile stuff !” 

“ Never mind. It ’s better than nothing. Try a 
little more.” 

But instead of obeying, he looked her steadily 
in the face. 


268 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


“ Where did I see you ? I remember your face !” 
said he. “ And who was that I heard talking just 
now ?” 

Suddenly, without any warning, he disengaged 
one hand from the hot towels in which he was 
swathed and sat up. A hoarse cry broke from his 
lips as full recognition of the place in which he 
found himself forced itself upon him. With a wild 
light of terror in his eyes, he looked searchingly 
round him. 

Where is he ? Where is he ?” cried he, in a 
thick whisper. 

Carrie’s face grew dark. 

Here is your friend,” she cried cheerily, “ here 
is Mr. Wedmore. He ’s going with you ; he’s not 
going to leave you ; be sure of that.” 

“Yes, old chap, I’m going with you,” said Max, 
hurrying forward and trying to shut out the view 
of the room with his person as he knelt down by 
his friend. 

Dudley frowned impatiently. 

“You, Max!” said he. “What are you doing 
here ?” 

But he asked the question without interest, evi- 
dently absorbed in another subject. 

“ I ’m going to take you down to The Beeches,” 
answered Max, promptly. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


269 


To his infinite satisfaction, this reply had the 
effect of distracting Dudley’s thoughts. Into his 
pallid face there came a tinge of color, as he looked 
intently into his friend’s eyes, and repeated : 

“ The Beeches ! You don’t mean that 1” 

I do ; the carriage will be here in a minute or 
two. And in the meantime we must think upon 
getting you dressed.” 

This question of clothing promised to be a diffi- 
cult one, as Dudley’s own things were saturated 
with water. Carrie sprang to her feet. 

'‘I’ll see about that,” said she, briskly, as she 
disappeared from the room. 

Max, alarmed at being left alone with Dudley, 
in whose eyes he could see the dawn of struggling 
recollection, babbled on about Christmas, his 
mother, his sisters, anything he could think of till 
Carrie came back again, with her arms full of men’s 
clothes — a m'otley assortment. 

Max looked at them doubtfully. They were all 
new — suspiciously new. 

Carrie laughed, with a little blush. 

“ Better not ask any questions about them, said 
she. “ Take your choice, and be quick.” 

With his lips Max formed the word : “ Stolen ?” 
but Carrie declined to answer. As there was no 
help- for it, Max dressed his friend in such of the 


270 The Wharf by the Docks, 


clothes as were a passable fit for him, while Carrie 
went out to watch for the expected carriage. When 
she returned to the kitchen, Dudley was ready for 
the journey. He was lying back in a chair, look- 
ing very white and haggard and exhausted, casting 
about him glances full of expectancy and terror, 
and starting at every sound. 

But he asked no more questions, and he made no 
mention of Mrs. Higgs. 

Bob had fulfilled his errand well. Outside the 
wharf they found a comfortable landau, with two 
good horses, hired from the nearest livery-stable. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


271 


CHAPTER XXII. 

TWO WOMEN. 

Bob grinned with satisfaction when Max, express- 
ing his gratification, dropped into his hand a half- 
sovereign. 

“ Thought you’d be pleased, sir,” said he, as he 
helped to get Dudley into the carriage. “ I said it 
was for a toff, a reg’lar tip-topper ; and so it was, s’ 
help me !” 

Dudley, who was very lame, and who had to be 
more than half carried, looked out of the window. 

Max was still outside, trying to get hold of Carrie, 
who was on the other side of the carriage. 

“ You ’re coming. Max ?” 

“ Yes, oh, yes, rather.” 

“ And — you ?” 

Dudley turned to Carrie, who drew back quickly 
and shook her head. 

“I? No.” ^ . 

Max ran round at the back of the carriage and 


272 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


caught her by the arm as she was slinking quietly 
away. 

‘‘Where are you going? Not back in there? 
You must come with us.” 

“ I ! — come w’ith you ? To your father’s house ? 
Catch me !” 

“ Well, part of the wa}^, at any rate,” urged Max, 
astutely. “ I dare not go all that way with him 
alone. See, he wants you to go. You shall get out 
just when you please.” 

Carrie hesitated. Although she saw through the 
kindly ruse which would protect her against her 
will, she saw, also, that Dudley was indeed in no fit 
state to take the long journey which was before 
him, and at lenght she allowed herself to be per- 
suaded to accompany them on at least the first part 
of the journey. 

And so, in the fog and the gloom of a January 
night, they began their strange drive. 

The road they took was by way of Greenwich and 
Dartford to Chatham, where there would be no 
difficulty in getting fresh horses for the rest of the 
journey. 

Dudley, who had been made as comfortable as 
possible by a sort of bed which was made up for him 
in the roomy carriage, seemed, after a short period 
of restlessness and excitability, to sink into sleep. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


273 


Max was rejoicing in this, but Carrie looked 
anxious. 

“ It isn ’t natural, healthy sleep, I ’m afraid,” said 
she, in a low voice. “ It ’s more like stupor. It 
wasn’t the water that did it, it was a blow on the 
head. You saw the mark. I ’m afraid it ’s con- 
cussion of the brain.” 

“ Ought he to travel, then ? ” asked Max, anx- 
iously. 

Carrie, who was sitting beside Dudley, and op- 
posite to Max, hesitated a little before answering : 

“ What else could we do ? We couldn’t leave him 
there at the wharf, could we ? And where else 
could we have taken him ? Not back to his 
chambers, certainly !” 

There was silence. The carriage jogged on in 
the darkness through London’s ugly outskirts, and 
the two watchers listened solicitously to the heavy 
breathing of their patient. It was a comfort to 
Max, a great one indeed, to have Carrie for a com- 
panion on this doleful journey. But she was not 
the same girl, now that she had duties to attend to, 
that she had been over that tite-h-tSte dinner, or 
even during the journey in the hansom. He himself 
felt that he now counted for nothing with her, that 
he was merely the individual who happened to 
occupy the opposite seat ; that her interest, her at- 


2 74 The Wharf by the Docks. 

tentions, were absorbed by the unconscious man by 
her side. 

“ Why didn’t you become a hospital nurse?” asked 
Max, suddenly. 

He heard rather than saw that she started. 

“That’s just what I thought of doing,” she an- 
swered, after a little pause. “ I ’m just old enough 
to enter one of the Children’s Hospitals as a pro- 
bationer. They take them at twenty.” 

“ I see. Then you couldn’t have tried be- 
fore.” 

“No ; they’re very strict about age.” 

“ I should think you were cut out for the work, if 
only you are strong enough,” said Max, with 
warmth. “ You seem to do just the right thing in 
just the right way.” 

“ I ’ve had plenty of experience,” said Carrie, 
shortly, breaking in upon rhapsodies which threat- 
ened to become tender. “ I did a lot of visiting 
among poor people who had no one to nurse them 
when I lived with Miss Aldridge. Down in these 
parts, the East End, you get practice enough like 
that, I can tell you !” 

“ But the treatment of a drowning man — that 
requires special knowledge, surely !” 

“ Yes, but down by the river is just the place to 
get it. He ’s the fifth person I ’ve seen taken out 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


275 


for dead in the time I Ve lived there. Three out 
of the five were dead. The other two, a boy and 
a woman, were brought around.” 

There was silence again. 

Presently Max whispered : 

‘‘ Do you know — can you guess — how he got into 
the water ?” 

Carrie shivered. 

“ Wait — wait till he can tell us himself,” said 
she, hurriedly. “ It ’s no use guessing. Perhaps 
it was an accident, you know.” 

“You don’t think so.?^” 

“ Sh — sh !” said Carrie. 

But Max persisted. 

“ You know as well as 1 do that that villainous 
old Mrs. Higgs is at the bottom of the affair.” 

Carrie bent over Dudley, to assure herself that, 
if not asleep, he was at least unconscious of what 
was passing. Then she turned to Max. 

“You are wrong,” said she then, quickly. “ Mrs. 
Higgs was an agent only, in the hands of some one 
else. If I tell you what I believe, you will only 
laugh at me.” 

“ What do you mean ?” 

“ I mean that she was a harmless, good-hearted, 
kind woman until — until Mr. Horne came to see 
her; that she was always good to me till then. 


276 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


And that, after that awful day when the man was 
killed — murdered by Mr. Horne — ” 

“ It ’s not true ! It can’t be true !” burst out 
Max. 

But Carrie went on, as if lie had not spoken : 

“ After that day she changed ; she was irritable, 
unkind, neglectful — not like the same woman. She 
left me alone sometimes ; she gave me no food at 
others ; she hid herself away from me ; she was 
angry at the least thing. And then — then,” went 
on the girl, in a frightful whisper, “ I found out 
something,” 

“ What was it?” 

“That some one used to get into the place at 
night — I don’t know how ; some one she was afraid 
of — a man.” 

“ Well ?” said Max, excited by her tone. 

“ I have heard him — seen him twice,” went on 
Carrie, in the lowest of whispers. “ And I believe — ” 

“ Yes, yes ; go on !” 

“ That it was Mr. Dudley Horne.” 

“Oh, rubbish!” 

Carrie was silent. Max went on, indignantly : 

“ How could you take such a silly idea into your 
head? What reason should Mr. Horne have for 
creeping about a hole like that at night?” 

“ Well, what reason should he have for coming 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


277 


to it at any time ? Yet you "know lie came in the 
daytime.” 

It was the turn of Max to remain silent. There 
was a long pause, and then Carrie went on : 

I used to sleep in a little attic over the out- 
house, just a corner of the roof it was. And twice 
at night I have heard a noise underneath, and 
looked through the cracks in the boards and seen a 
man down there, with a light. And each time, 
when the light was put out and the noise had 
wStopped, I have gone downstairs and found the 
doors bolted still on the inside.” 

“ Well, the place seems to be honeycombed with 
ways in and ways out. The strange man either 
went out by some way even you knew nothing 
about, or else Mrs. Higgs let him out.” 

“ No, she didn’t. I should have heard or seen her.” 

“ Well, but what reason can you have for sup- 
posing that this man was Mr. Dudley Horne ?” 

“ Once I saw his face,” answered Carrie. 

“ And you think it was the face of this man here 
beside you ?” 

Max struck a light and held it over the face of 
the unconscious Dudley. Carrie looked at him 
steadily. 

“ Well,” she said at last, “ it did look like him, 
that ’s all I can say.” 


278 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


Max frowned uneasily. But after a few moments 
a new thought struck him, and he turned to her 
sharply. The match he had struck had burned 
itself out, and they were again in darkness. 

“ If Mrs. Higgs was only a tool in his hands, as 
you suggest, for some mysterious purposes which 
nobody can understand or guess at, how do you 
account for her trying to drown him ?” 

“ They must have quarreled,” said Carrie, 
quickly. Then, instantly perceiving that she had 
made an admission, she added : “ That is, supposing 
she had anything to do with it.” 

“ Amiable old lady !” 'exclaimed Max. 

The mystery of the whole affair hung over both 
him and Carrie like a pall ; and the long night-drive 
seemed never-ending in the death-like silence. 
Max tried from time to time to break it, but Carrie 
grew more reserved as the hours went by, until her 
curt answers ceased altogether. 

Then, when dawn came, the dull dawn of a foggy 
morning, and the carriage drew up at the hotel in 
Chatham where they were to change horses, Max 
discovered that she was asleep. 

Dudley opened his eyes when the carriage 
stopped, but shut them again without a word to 
Max, who asked him how he felt. 

Max, when the people of the hotel had been 


The Wharf by the Docks, 279 

roused, succeeded in borrowing a rug, which he 
wrapped gently round Carrie, without waking her. 
And presently the carriage jogged on again on its 
journey, and the morning sun began to pierce the 
mist as the bare Kentish hop-fields and orchards 
were reached. 

Max leaned forward and looked at Carrie’s sweet 
face with infinite tenderness. Now in her sleep 
she looked like a child, with her lips slightly parted 
and her eyelashes sweeping her thin, white cheeks. 
The alert look of the Londoner, which gave an 
expression of premature* shrewdness to her waking 
face, had disappeared under the relaxing influence 
of slumber. She looked pitifully helpless, sad and 
weak, as her tired, worn-out little body leaned 
back in the corner of the carriage. 

Max looked at her with yearning in his eyes. 
This young ne’er-do-weel, as his father called him, 
had enjoyed the privilege of his type in being a 
great favorite with women. As usual in such 
cases, he had repaid their kindness with in- 
gratitude, and had had numerous flirtations without 
ever experiencing a feeling either deep or lasting 

Now, for the first time, in this beautiful waif of 
the big city he had found a mixture of warmth and 
coldness, of straightforward simplicity and bold- 
ness, which opened his eyes as to there being in her 


28 o 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


sex an attraction he had previously denied. He 
felt as he looked at her that he wanted her ; that 
he could not go away and forget her in the presence 
of the next pretty face he happened to see. 

This shabbily dressed girl, with the shiny seams 
in her black frock and the rusty hat, inspired him 
with respect, with something like reverence. 

In his way he had been in love many, many 
times. Now for the first time he worshiped a 
woman. 

When the carriage stopped at the park gate of 
The Beeches, Max sprang, out, and without waiting 
to answer the hurried questions of Carrie, who had 
awakened with a start, he ran across the grass and 
up the slope to the house. 

It was nine o’clock, and, when the door was opened 
by Bartram, Max came face to face with Doreen, 
who was entering the hall on her way to the break- 
fast-room. 

“ Why, Max, is it you } What a strange time to 
arrive ! And where have you been ? You look as 
if you ’d been up all night !” cried she, and she ran 
forward to kiss him, and swinging him round to 
the light, examined him, with an expression of 
amazement and horror. 

“ I have been up all night,” said he, briefly. 
“ I Ve driven all the way from London — ” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


581 


What !" 

‘‘ And — and I ’ve brought some one with me — 
some one who is ill, who is in trouble. Some 
one — ” 

A cry broke from her lips. She had grown quite 
white, and her hands had dropped to her sides. 

She understood. 

“ Dudley !” she whispered. “ Where is he ? Why 
haven’t you brought him in ?” 

“ He is at the gate. Where is my father ? I must 
speak to him first, or to mother.” 

Mrs. Wedmore herself, having been informed by 
Bartram of the arrival of her son, now came out of 
the breakfast-room to meet him. In a few words 
he informed her of the circumstances, adding, as 
he was bound to do, that there was a possibility 
that the police might come to make inquiries, if 
not to arrest Dudley. But Doreen, who insisted on 
hearing everything, overruled the faint objection 
which Mrs. Wedmore made, and determined to 
have him brought in before her father could learn 
anything .about it. 

Max, therefore, went down to bring the carriage 
up to the door, and Dudley, having been roused 
into a half-conscious condition, was assisted into 
the house and up to one of the spare bedrooms— 
Max on one side and Bartram on the other. 


282 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


By this time Mr. Wedmore had, of course, be- 
come aware of what was going on ; but it was now 
too late to interfere, even if he had wished to do 
so. When Dudley had been taken upstairs, Doreen 
met her brother as he came down. 

“ Who is the girl with the sweet face inside the 
carriage ?” 

Max stammered a little, and then said, by a happy 
inspiration : 

“Oh, that’s the nurse. You see — he was so 
ill—” 

Doreen looked at him keenly, but did not wait 
for any more explanations. 

“Why doesn’t she come in, then? Of course she 
must come in.” 

And she ran out to the door of the carriage, with 
Max not far behind. 

“ Aren’t you coming in ? They ’ve taken your 
patient upstairs,” she said gently, as poor Carrie, 
who looked more dead than alive, sat up in the 
carriage and tried to put her hat and her cape 
straight. 

“ Oh, I shan’t be wanted now, shall I ?” asked 
Carrie, with a timid voice and manner which con- 
trasted strongly with her calm, easy assurance 
while she was at work. 

Max threw a glance of gratitude at his sister. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


283 


as he quickly opened the door of the carriage and 
more than half dragged Carrie out. 

As the girl stepped, blinking, into the broad sun- 
light, Doreen stared at her intently, and then 
glanced inquiringly at her brother, who, however, 
did not see her questioning look. He led Carrie 
into the house and straight up the stairs toward 
the room where they had put Dudley. 

“Don’t make me stay,” pleaded she, in a low 
voice. “ They will know I ’m not a regular nurse, 
and — and I shall be uncomfortable, miserable. 
You can do without me now.” 

She was trying to shrink away. Max stopped in 
the middle of the stairs, and answered her gravely, 
earnestly : 

“ I only ask you to stay until we can get a regular 
nurse down. He is too ill to do without a trained 
attendant ; you know that. Will you oromise to 
wait while we send for one ?” 

Carrie could scarcely refuse. 

“ Yes, I will stay till then, if I am really wanted,” 
assented she. 

“ Ask my sister. Here she comes,” said Max. 

Doreen was on the stairs behind them. 

“ Is it really necessary— do you want me to stay 
while a nurse is sent for ?” asked Carrie, diffidently. 

Doreen looked up straight in her face, 


284 The Wharf by the Docks. 


“ What more natural than that you should stay 
with him ?” returned she, promptly ; “ since you are 
his sister.” 

Max and Carrie both started. The likeness be- 
tween Dudley and Carrie, which ^ Max had taken 
time to discover, had struck Doreen at once. Carrie 
would have denied the allegation, but Max caught 
her arm and stopped her. 

“ Quite true,” said he quietly. “ This is the way, 
Miss Horne, to your brother’s room.” 

Doreen was quick enough to see that there was 
some little mystery about the relationship which 
she had divined, and she went rapidly past her 
brother without asking any questions. 

It was about two hours after Dudley’s arrival 
that Carrie, now installed in the sick-room, came to 
the door and asked for Max. Her face was rigid 
with a great terror. She seemed at first unable to 
utter the words which were on her tongue. At last 
she said, in a voice which sounded hard and unlike 
her own : 

“ Don’t send for a nurse. I must stay with him. 
He is delirious, and I have just learned — from him 
—from his ravings, a secret— a terrible secret — one 
that must not be known !” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


285 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE BLUE-EYED NURSE. 

It was at the door of Dudley’s sick-room that 
Carrie informed Max that she had learned a secret 
from the lips of the sick man, and Max, by a natural 
impulse of curiosity, nay, more, a deep interest, 
pushed the door gently open. 

Dudley’s voice could be heard muttering below 
his breath words which Max could not catch. 

But Carrie pulled the young man sharply back 
by the arm into the corridor, and shut the door be- 
hind her. Her face was full of determination. 

“ No,” said she, not even you.”' 

Max drew himself up, offended. 

“ I should think you might trust me,” he said, 
stiffly. “ The doctor will have to hear when he 
comes. And the secret, whatever it is, will be safer 
with me than with old Haselden.” 

Carrie smiled a little, and shook her head. 

“ The doctor,” said she, “ wouldn’t be able to make 
head or tail of what he says. Now, you would.” 


286 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


“And if I did, what of that? Don’t I know 
everything, or almost everything, already? Didn’t 
I bring him down here, to my father’s house, after 
I knew that there was a warrant out against him ? 
What better proof do you want that the secret 
would be safe with me ?” 

But Carrie would not give way. Without enter- 
ing into an argument, she stood before him with a 
set look of obstinacy in her mouth and eyes, slowly 
shaking her head once or twice as he went on with 
his persuasions. 

“ Do you think I should make a wrong use of the 
secret ?” asked Max, impatiently. 

“ Oh, no.” 

“ Do you think it would turn me against him ?” 

But at this question she hesitated. 

“ I don’t know,” said she, at last. 

“ It is something that has given you pain ?” Max 
went on, noting the traces of tears on her face and 
the misery in her eyes. 

“ Yes, oh, yes.” 

The answer was given in a very low voice, with 
such a heart-felt sob that Max was touched to the 
quick. He came quite close to her, and, bending 
down, so that his mustache almost brushed the soft 
fair hair on her forehead, he whispered : 

I ’m so sorry. Poor Carrie ! I won’t worry you, 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


287 


then ; I won’t ask any more questions, if only — if 
only 5^ou ’ll let me tell you how awfully sorry I am.” 

He ventured to put his hand upon her shoulder, 
as he bent down to look into her face. 

And, as luck would have it, Mr. Wedmore at that 
very moment bounced out of one of the rooms 
which opened on the corridor, and caught sight of 
this pretty little picture before it broke up. 

Of course. Max withdrew his hand and lifted up 
his head so swiftly that he flattered himself he had 
been too quick for his father, who walked along the 
corridor toward the drawing-room as if he had 
seen nothing. 

But Max was mistaken. Mr. Wedmore, already 
greatly irritated by his son’s repeated failures to 
settle down, found in this little incident a pretext 
for a fresh outburst of wrath. 

Unluckily for poor Carrie, Mrs. Wedmore was in 
a state of irritation, in which she was even readier 
than usual to agree with her husband. The arrival 
of Dudley, with a terrible charge hanging over his 
head, in such circumstances as to stir up Doreen’s 
feelings for him to the utmost, was bad enough. 
But for him to descend upon them in the company 
of a young woman of whom she had never heard, 
and in whose alleged relationship to Dudley she 
entirely disbelieved, had reduced the poor lady to 


288 


The Wharf by the Dock^ 


a state which Queenie succinctly described as “ one 
of mamma’s worst.” 

As soon as Mr. Wedmore entered the drawing- 
room, where his wife and daughters were discussing 
some invitations to dinner which were to have 
been sent out, but about which there was now a 
doubt, he abruptly ordered the two girls to leave 
the room. They obeyed very quietly, but Doreen 
threw at her mother one imploring glance, and 
gently pulling her father’s hair, told him that he 
was not to be a hard, heartless man. 

When the door was shut, however, Mr. Wedmore 
addressed his wife in no very gentle tones. 

Ellen,” said he, curtly, “ you must get rid of 
that baggage they call the nurse. She’s no more a 
nurse than you are !” 

“ And she’s no more his sister than I am, either !” 
chimed in Mrs. Wedmore, who had risen from her 
chair in great excitement. 

Mr. Wedmore stared at his wife. 

“ Sister !” cried he, in a voice of thunder. 
“ Whose sister ? Dudley Horne never had a 
sister !” 

“ I know that, but that ’s the story they have 
made up for us; and the girls— our girls — are 
ready to believe it, and I don’t want them to know 
it isn’t true.” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


289 


“ Well, whatever she is, and whoever she is, I 
want her to be outside the house before lunch 
time,” said Mr. Wedmore. I Ve just caught Max 
with his arm around her, and I haven’t the slightest 
doubt that it was he who made up the story. Any 
tale ’s good enough for the old people ! Look at 
her face — look at her dress ! She is some hussy 
who ought never to have been allowed inside the 
house !” 

“ It wa^ Doreen who brought her in. And, to 
do her justice, George, I believe the girl didn’t 
want to come,” said Mrs. Wedmore. “ And it’s 
about Doreen I wanted to talk to you, George. 
This coming of Dudley has upset all the good we 
did by never mentioning him to her. To-daj she’s 
as much excited, as anxious and as miserable as if 
they were still engaged. And — and — oh ! if the 
police come here to the house and take him 
awa-a-ay,” — and here the poor lady became almost 
too hysterical to articulate — “ it will break the 
child’s heart, George ; it will indeed. And, oh ! do 
you think it possible he really did — really did — ” 

“ Did what?” 

‘'Oh, you know ! It *s to dreadful to say. Why 
do you make me say it ? They say something 
about his having gone out of his mind, and — and — 
killed somebody. It isn’t true, George, is it?” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


290 


“ I don’t know, I ’m sure. Who told you ?” 

“ Max first, and then I learned the rest from the 
guesses of the girls. Oh, it is dreadful — shocking ! 
And to think of his having been planted down 
upon us like this, just when I was beginning to 
hope that Doreen was getting kinder to Mr. 
Lindsay.” 

It ’s all the doing of that idiot Max !” said Mr, 
Wedmore, angrily. “ I ’ll send him out to the 
Cape, and make an end of it. He shall go next 
month.” 

“ Oh, I didn’t want that,” pleaded Mrs. Wedmore, 
with a sudden change to tenderness and self- 
reproach. “ Don’t do anything in a hurry, George, 
anything you will be sorry for afterward.” 

Sorry for ! The only thing I ’m sorry for is that 
I didn’t send him before, and saved all this.” 

“ And as for the girl, no doubt it ’s her fault, and 
Dudley’s, a great deal more than Max’s,” went on 
the mother of Max, with the usual feminine excuse 
for the darling scapegrace. “ When she ’s gone he 
will forget all about her, as he always does.” 

This speech was an unlucky one. 

“ Yes, that’s just what I complain of, that he 
always forgets,” said he, turning sharply upon his 
wife. “ If he would stick to anything or to any- 
body for so much as a week, or a day, or an hour, I 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


291 


shouldn’t mind so much. But he isn’t man enough 
for that. As soon as this girl ’s out of the house, 
he ’ll be looking about for another one.” 

I’m sure it wasn’t his fault that she came here 
at all,” persisted Mrs. Wedmore, who never opposed 
her husband except in the interest of her son. 
“ And I ’m sure you can’t blame him for doing what 
he could for his friend, even if he does put us to a 
little inconvenience. After all, Dudley ’s been like 
a son to you for a great many years — ” 

“ That’s just what I complain of — that he ’s so 
like a son,” interrupted her husband. “'That is to 
say, he has brought upon us no end of worry and 
bother, and a bill for five guineas for this pleasant 
little drive down from London.” 

“ Well, how could we refuse to take him in ?” 

“ How did he get into the mess?” 

“ What mess ?” 

“ That’s what I want to know, too — what mess ? 
I am told he fell into the water, striking his head 
against the side of a bridge, or of a church, or it 
doesn’t matter what, as he fell. They haven’t 
thought it worth while to make up a good story. 
But whether he was drunk, or whether he was es- 
caping from the police, or what he was doing, no- 
body seems to know. If I ’d been consulted, if I 
hadn’t been treated as a cipher in the matter, he 


292 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


should have driven straight back to London again 
with the girl, and with Max himself.” 

Mrs. Wedmore thought it better to say nothing 
to this, but to let her husband simmer down. These 
ferocious utterances came from the lips only, as 
she very well knew, and might safely be disre- 
garded. 

Fortunately his attention was diverted at this 
point by the arrival of the doctor, who had been out 
on his rounds when they first sent for him. 

Rather relieved to have a fresh person to pour 
out his complaints to, Mr. Wedmore hastened to 
give his old friend a somewhat confused account of 
the patient’s arrival and condition, in which 

cheap, ready-made clothes,” “a bill for five 
guineas,” a baggage of a girl ” and “ the police ” 
were the prominent items. 

But as for any details concerning the patient’s 
state of health and the reasons for his needing 
medical care. Doctor Haselden could learn nothing 
at all until he had prevailed upon Mr. Wedmore to 
let him see Dudley instead of listening to abuse of 
him. 

Doctor Haselden was a long time in the sick- 
room, and when he came out he looked grave. Mr. 
Wedmore, who met him outside the door, was 
annoyed. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


293 


It ’s nothing, 1 suppose, that a few days’ quiet 
won’t set right ?” he asked quickly. 

“ I don’t know, I’m sure,” answered the doctor. 
“ It ’s more serious than I thought by what you said 
— a great deal more serious. I don’t know, I ’m sure, 
whether we shall get him round at all.” 

A little cry startled both men and made them 
look round. In a recess of the corridor above they 
could distinguish the figure of a woman, and Mr. 
Wedmore’s heart smote him, for it was Doreen. 

“ Go away, child ! Go away !” said he, half petu- 
lantly, but yet with some remorse in his tone. 

The girl’s crazy about him,” he added, with irri- 
tation, when his daughter had silently obeyed. 

“ Poor child ! Poor child !” said Doctor Haselden, 
sympathetically. “ She’s the real old-fashioned 
sort, with a warm heart under all her little airs. I 
hope he ’ll get round, if only for her sake. But — ” 

“ She couldn’t marry him in any case,” said Mr. 
Wedmore, shortly. “I thought I told you that 
affair was broken off— definitely broken off— weeks 
ago. And now — ” 

He stopped and intimated by a gesture of the 
hand that the break was more definite than ever. 

The doctor was curious, but he tried not to show it. 

“ I should wire up to town for another nurse, I 
think,” said he. “ This little girl can’t do it all.” 


294 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


Mr. Wedmore pricked tip his ears. 

“ Then I must wire for two — for two nurses,” said 
he, decidedly. “ We’re going to send this gill off. 
She’s not a nurse at all.” 

“ Ah, but she does very well,” objected the doc- 
tor, promptly, “ and you will be doing very unwisely 
if you send her away. It seems she understands 
all the circumstances of the case, and that counts 
for something in treating a patient who has evi- 
dently something on his mind. She seems to -be 
able to soothe him, and in a case of concussion — ” 
But she’s trying to get hold of my fool of a son 
Max !” protested Mr. Wedmore. 

“ But it isn’t a question of your son Max, but of 
young Horne,” said Doctor Haselden, with de- 
cision. “ As for Max, he can take care of 
himself ; and, at any rate, he ’s got all his family 
about to take care of him. You keep the girl. She ’s 
got a head on her shoulders. Most uncommon thing, 
that — in a girl with such eyes !’ 

And the doctor, with a humorous nod to his angry 
friend, went downstairs. 

After this warning of the real danger in which 
Dudley lay, it was, of course, impossible for Mr. 
Wedmore to send poor Carrie away, at any rate until 
the arrival of some one who could take her place. 
And as there was clearly some sense in the doctor’s 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


295 


suggestion that her knowledge of the case was 
valuable, Mr. Wedmore ended by sending up for 
one trained nurse to relieve her, instead of for two, 
as he had proposed. 

And, after all, there seemed to be less danger in 
the direction of Max than he had supposed ; for 
Carrie never once left the sick-room until the pro- 
fessional nurse arrived at ten o’clock that night. 
And as Mrs. Wedmore was then in waiting to mount 
guard over Carrie, and to carry her off to her supper 
and then to her bedroom, the first day’s danger to 
the susceptible son and heir seemed to have been 
got through rather well. 

On the following morning, however, the well- 
watched Carrie escaped from the supervision of her 
jailers, and boldly made a direct attack upon Max 
under the family’s nose. 

Carrie was looking out of one of the back win- 
dows of the house to get a breath of fresh air, be- 
fore taking her turn of duty in the sick-room, when 
she saw Max talking to one of the grooms outside 
the stables. He saw her, and his face flushed. 
Mrs. Wedmore, who was standing on guard a few 
paces from Carrie, noted the fact with maternal 
anxiety. She rather liked the girl, whose modest 
manners were as attractive as her pretty face ; but 
with the fear of “ entanglements ” before her eyes, ^ 


296 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


she tried to check her own inclination. Carrie 
turned to her abruptly. 

“The nurse won’t mind waiting a few minutes 
for me,” said she, quickly. “ I must speak a few 
words to Mr. Max.” 

And before Mrs. Wedmore could get breath after 
this audacious statement, Carrie was down the stairs 
and half away across the yard, where Max hastened 
to meet her. 

“ I have sojnething to say to you,” she began at 
once with a grave face. “ Do you know that — 
they ve come ? ” 

“ Who ? Who have come ?’' 

“ The police.” 

Max started. 

“ Nonsense ! What makes you think so ? I ’ve 
seen no one.” 

“ I have, though. I ’ve been expecting them, for 
one thing, and it’s made me sharp, I suppose. But 
I ’ve seen in the park, among the trees, this morn- 
ing before anybody was up almost, a man walking 
about, taking his bearings and looking about him.” 

“ One of the gardeners,” said Max. “ There are 
several.” 

“ Oh, no, it wasn’t a gardener. Can’t you trust 
my London eyes ? And listen : Presently another 
one came up, and they talked together. Then one 


The Wharf by the Docks. 297 


went one way and the other another, not- like 
gardeners or workingmen, but like men on the 
lookout.” 

“ What should they be on the lookout for ?” asked 
Max. “ If they want Dudley, why don’t they come 
up to the house ? I don’t doubt that by this time 
they know where he is.” 

Carrie said nothing ; but there was in her eyes, 
as she glanced searchingly round her, a peculiar 
look of wistful dread which puzzled Max and 
made him wonder what fear it was that was in her 
mind. 





298 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

MAX MAKES A STAND AND A DISCOVERY. 

There was a pause, and then Carrie, without 
answering him, turned to go back into the house. 
But Max followed and caught her by the arm. 

“ Carrie,” said he, “ they ’re making a slave of 
you, without a word of thanks. You look worn 
out.” 

“ No, I ’m not,” said she, briskly. “ I Ve only 
taken my turns ; I should look all right if it hadn’t 
been for that long, tiring journey yesterday. I 
haven’t quite got over that yet.” 

She was trying to free her hand, which Max was 
holding in his. 

“ You ’ll never be strong enough for a hospital 
nurse, Carrie ! ” 

“Oh, yes, but I shall !” retorted she. And as she 
spoke, the pink color, the absence of which made 
her usually look so delicate, came into her cheeks. 
“ And you must remember that I shall be better fed, 
better clothed then. I am not really weak at all.” 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


299 

“ I repeat — you will never be strong enough for 
a nurse. Better take my advice and marry me, 
Carrie !” 

But at that, a sudden impulse of hot anger gave 
the girl the necessary strength to snatch her hand 
away from him. She faced him fiercely. 

“ What ! To be looked at always as your father, 
your mother, look at me now ? As if I were a thief 
who must be watched, lest she should steal some- 
thing ? They needn’t be afraid either, if only they 
knew! And before I go I ’ll tell them. Yes, I ’ll 
tell them what a mistake they make in thinking I 
want to take their son, their precious son, away 
from them 1 That for their son !” 

And Carrie, very ungratefully, to be sure, held 
her right hand close to the face of Max and snapped 
her fingers scornfully. She had seen Mrs. Wed- 
more’s eyes over the half blind of one of the win- 
dows, and the minx thought this little scene would 
be a wholesome lesson. 

But Max, following the direction of Carrie’s eyes, 
had also seen the watching face, and a manful spirit ' 
of defiance on the one hand, of passion on the 
other, moved him to show both Carrie and his 
mother how things were going with him. 

Seizing the girl round the waist when her little 
spurt of defiance was scarcely over, he held her 


300 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


head with his disengaged hand and pressed upon 
her eyes, her cheeks and her lips a dozen hot kisses. 

“ There !” said he, when at last he let her go, and 
she, staggering, blushing, ran toward the shelter 
of the house. “ That’s what you get for being un- 
grateful, you little cat. And it ’s nothing to what 
you ’ll get from my mother, who ’s sure to say it ’s 
all your fault. And so — ” roared he up the stairs 
after her, as she reached the top, “ so it is, of 
course !” 

But Carrie found a refuge inside the sick-room, 
where Dudley, who had passed a better night than 
they had even hoped, was now lying with closed 
eyes, quiet and apparently calm. 

It was upon Max himself, for a wonder, that the 
vials of the family wrath were poured. Mrs. Wed- 
more, happening to meet her husband while the last 
grievance against the girl was fresh, and before she 
had had the time to meditate on the re.sult of a 
premature disclosure, made known to him the out- 
rage of which she had been a witness, taking care 
to dwell upon the audacity of the girl in pursuing 
and provoking Max. 

Mr. Wedmore listened in silence, and then said, 
curtly : 

“ Where is he now? Send him to me.” 

Max, bent upon making himself as conspicuous 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


301 


and, therefore, as offensive as possible, was whis- 
tling in the hall at the moment. And there was a de- 
fiant note in his very whistling which worked his 
father up to boiling point. Mr. Wedmore sprang 
off his chair and dashed open the door. 

“ Max, you fool, come here !” was his unpromis- 
ing summons. 

Max came at once, rather red in the face and 
bright of eyes. Mrs. Wedmore, standing, frightened 
and anxious, in the background, thought she had 
never seen her darling boy look so handsome, so 
manly. He came in very quietly, without swagger- 
ing, without defiance, as if he had not noticed the 
offensive epithet. 

His father, who was by this time on the post of 
vantage, the hearth-rug, with his hands behind him 
and his back to the fire, pointed imperiously to a 
chair.. 

“Sit down, sir.” 

Max sat down very deliberately on a chair other 
than the one his father had chosen for him, and 
looked down on the floor. 

“ So you are at your old tricks, your old habits !” 
began Mr. Wedmore. 

Max looked up. Then he sat up. 

“What old tricks and habits do you mean. 


sir?’ 


302 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


“ Running after every girl you see, and in defiance 
of all decency, under your mother’s very nose.” 

Mrs. Wedmore would have interposed here, but 
her husband waved his hand imperially, and she 
remained silent. Max leaned back in his chair and 
met his father’s eyes steadily. 

“ You have made a mistake, sir, and my mother 
has made a mistake, too. It is quite true she may 
have seen me kissing Miss — Miss — Carrie, in fact. 
But I hope to have the right to kiss her. I want to 
marry her.” 

“ To marry this — this — ” 

“ This beautiful young girl, whom nobody has a 
word to say against,” interrupted Max, in a louder 
voice. “ Come, sir, you can’t say I ’m at my old 
tricks now. I ’ve never wanted to marry any girl 
before.” 

For the moment Mr. Wedmore was stupefied. 
This was worse, far worse than he had' expected. 
Mrs. Wedmore, also, was rather shocked. But the 
sensation was tempered, in her case, with admira- 
tion of her boy’s spirit in daring to make this 
avowal. 

“ Mind, I only say I want to marry her. Because, 
so far, she has refused to have anything to say to 


Not refused to marry you !” broke in Mrs. Wed- 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


303 


more, unable to remain quiet under such provoca- 
tion as this. 

Yes, refused to marry me, mother. I have asked 
her— begged her.” 

Oh, it s only artfulness, to make you more per- 
sistent,” cried Mrs. Wedmore, indignantly. 

‘‘ Or perhaps,” suggested Mr. Wedmore, in his 
driest tones, “ the girl is shrewd enough to know 
that I should cut off a son who was guilty of such 
a piece of idiocy and leave him to his own re- 
sources.” 

Max said nothing for a moment ; then he re- 
marked, quietly : 

“ You have been threatening to do that already, 
sir, before there was any question of my marrying.” 

Mrs. Wedmore was frightened by the tone Max 
was using. He was so much quieter than usual, so 
much more decided in his tone, that she began to 
think there was less chance than usual of his com- 
ing to an agreement with his father. 

“ You know, Max,” she said, coming over to his 
chair and putting an affectionate hand on his head, 
“ that your father has only spoken to you as he has 
done because he wanted to rouse up your spirit 
and make you ashamed of being lazy.” 

Max rose from his chair and turned to her with 
flashing eyes. 


304 


* The Wharf by the Docks, 


'' And now, when there is a chance of my rous- 
ing myself at last, when I am ready and anxious to 
prove it, and to set to work, and to settle down, he 
is angrier with me than ever. Mother, you know 
I ’m right, and you know it isn’t fair.” 

Mrs. Wedmore looked with something like terror 
into her son’s handsome, excited face. 

“ But, my dear boy, don’t you see that this would 
be ruin, to tie yourself to a girl like that ? Why, 
she told me herself that she didn’t belong to any- 
where or anybody.” 

‘‘ And is that any reason why she should never 
belong to anywhere or to anybody ? If there was 
anything wrong about the girl herself, I would 
listen to you — 

“Listen to us! You’ll have to listen !” inter- 
rupted his father. 

Max glanced at him, and went on : 

“ But there is not.” 

“ And how do you know that ? How long have 
you known her ?” 

Max was taken aback. It had not occurred to him 
to think how short his acquaintance with Carrie 
had been. 

“ Long enough to find out all about her,” he 
answered, soberly ; “ and to make up my mind that 
I ’ll have her for my wife.” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


305 


“ Then that settles it,” broke in Mr. Wedmore, 
whose ill-humor had not been decreased by the fact 
that Max evidently considered it more important 
to conciliate his mother than to try to convince 
him. “ You will go to the Cape next month ; and 
if you choose to take this baggage with you, you 
can do so. It won’t much matter to us what sort of 
a wife you introduce to your neighbors out there.” 
' But Max strode across the room and stood face to 
face with his father, eye to eye. 

“No, sir,” he said, in a dogged tone of voice, 
thrusting his hands deep into his pockets and look- 
ing at him steadily. “ I shall not go to the Cape. 
You have a right to turn me out of your house if 
you please. In fact, it ’s quite time I went, I know. 
It ’s time I did settle down. It ’s time I did try to do 
something for myself. And I ’m going to. I ’m 
going to try to earn my own living and to make 
enough to keep a wife — the wife I want. And I 
shall do it somehow. But I’m not going to be 
packed off to Africa, as if my marrying this girl 
were a thing to be ashamed of. I ’m going to stay in 
England. I sha’n’t come near you. You needn’t 
be afraid of that. I shall be too proud of my wife 
to bring her among people who would look down 
upon her. And perhaps you ’d better not inquire 
where I live or what I ’m doing, for we sha’n’t be 


3o6 The Wharf by the Docks. 

able to live in a fashionable neighborhood, nor to 
be too particular about what we turn our hands to.” 

While Max made this speech very slowly, very 
deliberately, his father listened to him with ever- 
increasing anger and disgust, and his mother, not 
daring to come too close while he was right under 
the paternal eye, hung over the table in the back- 
ground, with yearning, tremulous love in her eyes, 
and with her lips parted, ready to utter the tender 
words of a pleading peacemaker. 

But the tone Mr. Wedmore chose to take was that 
of utter contempt, complete irresponsibility. When 
his son had finished speaking he waited as if to hear 
whether there was any more to come, and then 
abruptly turned his back upon him and began to 
poke the fire. 

“ Very well,” said he, with an affectation of ex- 
treme calmness. “ Since you have made up your 
mind, the sooner you begin to carry out your plans 
the better. I ’m very glad to see that you have a 
mind to make up.” 

‘‘ Thank you, sir,” said Max. 

And he was turning to leave the room, when his 
mother sprang forward and stopped him. 

“ No, no ! Don’t go like that ! My boy ! George! 
Don’t say good-bye yet. Take a little time. Let 
him try a little trouble of his own for a change. He 


The Wh(\rf by the Docks, 


307 


has made up his mind, he says. I ’m sure he ’s old 
enough. Leave him alone.” 

Max put his arm round his mother, gave her a 
warm kiss, disengaged himself, and left the room. 

The poor woman was almost hysterical. 

He means it, George ! He means it this time !” 
she moaned. 

And her husband, though he laughed at her, and 
though he said to himself that he did not care, was 
inclined to agree with her. 

Max went straight up to his own room, and began 
to do his packing with much outward cheerfulness. 
Indeed he felt no depression over the dashing step 
he was taking, although he felt sore over the part- 
ing with home and his mother and sisters. 

He waS" debating within himself whether he 
should try to see Carrie before he went, or whether 
he should only leave a note to be given to her after 
he was gone, when he heard the voice of his sister 
Doreen calling him. He threw open the door and 
shouted back. 

She was in the hall. 

- ‘ Max,” cried she, in a hissing whisper, “ I want 
to speak to you. Make haste !” 

He ran downstairs and found her standing with 
two of the maids, both of whom looked rather 
frightened. 


3o8 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


“ Max,” said Doreen, ‘‘ there’s an old woman 
hanging about the place — ” Max started. He 
guessed what was coming. “ The same old woman 
that came at Christmas time. She jumped up in 
the well-house at Anne, and sent her into hysterics. 
And now they ’ve lost sight of her, just as they did 
last time, and we want you to help to ferret her out 
and send her away.” 

All right,” said Max. “ We ’ll pack her off.” 

He was at the bottom of the staircase by this 
time, and was starting on his way to the yard, when 
a little scream from one of the two maids, as she 
glanced up the stairs, made him look around. 
Carrie had come down so lightly and so swiftly that 
she was upon the group before they had heard a 
sound. She beckoned to Max, who came back at 
once. 

Carrie was shaking like a leaf ; her eyes were 
wide with alarm, with terror. Max went up a few 
stairs, to be out of hearing of the others, as she 
seemed to wish. Then she whispered : 

“You know who it is. I saw her. Leave her 
alone. I implore you to leave her alone ! She ’ll 
do no harm. Let her rest. Let the poor creature 
rest. If — if the police — ” 

At that moment there was a shout from the yard 
outside. Carrie sprang like a hare up the stairs 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


309 


to the window, and looked out with straining 
eyes. 

The afternoon was one of those dull, misty winter 
days, with a leaden sky and an east wind. 

“ I ’ll see that she isn’t hurt !” called out Max, as 
he bounded down the stairs and ran into the yard 
behind the house. 

Here he found a motley group — the stablemen, 
the laundry-maids and the gardeners — all hunting 
in the many corners and crannies of the outbuild- 
ings for the old woman who had alarmed Anne. 

Max spoke sharply to the men. 

Here, what are you about ?” said he. “ Hunting a 
poor old woman as if she were a wild animal ? Go 
back to your work. She ’ll never dare to show her 
face while you are all about !” 

“ She ’s left the well-house, sir, and, we think, 
she ’s got into the big barn,” explained one of the 
lads, with the feeling that Mr. Max himself would 
want to join in the chase when he knew that the 
game was to hand. 

Well, leave her there,” answered Max, prompt- 
ly. “ She ’ll come out when you ’ve all gone, and 
I ’ll send her about her business.” 

Max saw, as he spoke, that there was a man 
standing at a little distance, just outside the stable- 
gate, whom he did not recognize. Before he could 


3iO The Wharf by the Docks, 

ask who he was, however, the man had disappeared 
from view. He remembered what Carrie had said 
about the presence of a policeman, and he thought 
the time was come to take the bull by the horns. 

So he walked rapidly in the direction of the gate, 
and addressed the man whom he found there. 

“ Are you a policeman ?” he asked, abruptly. 

Yes, sir,” answered the man, touching his hat. 

“ What is your business here?” 

“ I ’m on the lookout for some one I have a war- 
rant for. Charge of murder, sir.” 

“ Man or woman ?” 

“ Man, sir.” 

“ Will you tell me his name ?” 

Horne, sir.” 

Max thought a moment. 

Why are you pottering about here, instead of 
going straight up to the house ?” 

“ Well, sir, I ’m obeying orders.” 

Come with me,” said Max suddenly. There ’s 
an old hag hiding in the barn now, who knows 
more about this business than Mr. Horne.” 

Behind the young gentleman’s back the detective 
smiled, but he professed to be ready to follow him. 

“There’s only one way out of this barn,” ex- 
plained Max, as he approached the door, beside 
which a groom was standing. “ By this door, 


The Wharf by the Docks. 3 1 1 

which is never locked. There is a window, but it 's 
too high up for anybody to get out by.” 

Telling the groom to guard the door, Max went 
into the barn, followed by the detective. There 
was still light enough for them to find their way 
about among the lumber. 

“ Where 's the window, sir?” asked the detective. 

Max pointed to a speck of light high in the south 
wall of the barn.” 

“ She couldn’t get out there,” said he, “ even if 
she could climb up to it. Unless she could swarm 
a rope.” 

And he touched one of the ropes which dangled 
from a huge beam. 

The detective, however, walked rapidly past him, 
and stopped short, pointing to something which 
was lying on the floor under the window. 

It was the body of a man, lying in a heap. 


312 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED. 

Max helped the detective raise the man from the 
ground. He was quite dead, and from the position 
in which they had found him, both men concluded 
that he had been in the act of climbing up to the 
high window, when the rope by which he was 
holding broke under his weight. It was evident 
that he had fallen upon an old millstone which was 
among the lumber on the floor beneath, and that 
the shock of the fall had broken his neck. 

They had found out all this before Max could 
form any opinion as to the identity of the dead 
man. He was short of stature, and apparently be- 
tween fifty and sixty years of age, slightly built, 
but muscular. The body was dressed in the clothes 
of a respectable mechanic. 

There was very little light in the barn by this 
time, and Max directed the groom, who had been 
standing outside, and who had entered, attracted 
by Max’s shout of discovery, to bring a lantern. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


313 


“ I suppose we ’d better send for a doctor,” said 
Max, “ though the man 's as dead as a doornail. In 
the meantime, just give a look around and see 
whether the woman is anywhere about.” 

The detective appeared to follow the suggestion, 
for he at once proceeded to a further inspection of 
the building by the aid of one of the two lanterns 
which the groom had by this time brought. And 
presently he came back to Max with a bundle in his 
hand. 

Max, by the light of the lantern which the groom 
was holding for him, was looking at the face of the 
dead man, whom he guessed to be one of Mrs. 
Higgs’s accomplices, perhaps the mysterious person 
whose influence over the old woman, according to 
Carrie, was so bad. 

While he was staring intently at the dead face, 
he heard a stifled cry, and looking up, saw that 
Carrie had stolen into the barn behind the groom, 
and had her eyes fixed upon the body. 

Max sprang up. 

Do you know him ? Is it the man who used to 
get into the place by night ?” asked he, eagerly. 

Carrie, without answering, looked from the dead 
man to the detective, and from him to the bundle 
he was carrying. 

“ Ah !” exclaimed she. 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


3H 


Max looked in his turn. The detective was dis- 
playing, one by one, a woman’s skirt, bodice, bon- 
net, shawl and a cap with a “front” of woman’s 
hair sewn inside it. 

“ I think you can guess, sir, what’s become of the 
woman now?” said the officer, grimly. 

Max started violently, shocked by a surprise 
which, both for the detective and for Carrie, had 
been discounted some time ago. 

“ Mrs. Higgs ” was a man. 

Even with this knowledge to help him, Max, as 
he stared again at the dead face, found it difficult 
to recognize in the still features those which in life 
had inspired him with feelings of repulsion. 

Just a quiet, inoffensive, respectable-looking man, 
not coarse or low in type ; this would have bepn his 
comment upon the dead man, if he had known 
nothing about him. Max shuddered as he with- 
drew his gaze ; and, as he did so, he met the eyes 
of Carrie. 

He beckoned to her to come away with him, and 
she followed him as far as the door, toward which 
some members of the household, to whom the news 
had penetrated, were now hastening. 

“ Carrie !” cried he, as he looked searchingly in 
her face, “ you knew this ? How long have you 
known it ?” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


315 

She could scarcely answer. She was shaking- 
from head to foot, and was evidently suffering 
from a great shock. 

“Yes, I knew it, but only since I came here. It 
was part of what Mr. Dudley Horne let out in his 
raving.” 

“ Only part of it ?” cried Max. 

But Carrie would confess nothing more. And, 
as Mr. Wedmore came across the yard at this mo- 
ment, followed by Dr. Haselden, Carrie ran back 
into the house as Max met his father. 

“ What ’s all this about a dead man found in the 
barn ?” asked Mr. Wedmore, with all the arrogance 
of the country gentleman, who thinks that no one 
has a right to die on his premises without his per- 
mission. 

Max held his father back for a moment until the 
doctor had passed on. In the excitement of this 
occurrence, Mr. Wedmore was glad to have an 
opportunity of appearing to forget that there was 
any quarrel between them. On second thoughts, 
he inclined to think that he had perhaps, on this 
occasion, been a little too hard on his son, and he 
was anxious for some loop-hole by which he could 
creep out of the consequences of his own sternness. 
This, however, could hardly have been guessed by 
his manner, which was at least as arrogant as ever. 


3i6 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


“ It ’s somebody who was mixed up in the death 
of Edward Jacobs, sir, I think,” said Max, in a low 
voice. “ A man who has been living down at the 
East End of London disguised as a woman, and 
who was, I believe, at the bottom of all the mis- 
chief.” 

“ Man disguised as a woman ?” cried Mr. Wed- 
more, incredulously. ‘‘ What an improbable story ! 
And what should he do down here in my barn ?” 

“ I think he must have come down to see Dud- 
ley, sir. We believe that it was he who tried to 
drown Dudley, after he had succeeded in drowning 
Edward Jacobs.” 

Mr. Wedmore frowned in perplexity. 

‘‘Trying to drown Dudley! What on earth 
should he do that for ? What had Dudley to do 
with him ?” 

“Well, sir, we don’t quite know. But Dudley 
was acquainted with this man, undoubtedly, though 
we don’t know whether he knew him to be a man, 
or only as Mrs. Higgs, which was the name the 
man went by.” 

“ Let me see the man,” said Mr. Wedmore. 

And, pushing past his son, he entered the 
barn. 

The doctor made way for him. 

“ He is quite dead. He must have been killed 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


317 


instantly,” said Doctor Haselden, as his friend 
came tip. 

Mr. Wedmore took the lantern from the man who 
held it, and looked at the dead face. As he did so, 
his first expression of curiosity gave place to one of 
perplexity, followed by a stare of intense amaze- 
ment and horror. 

What is it ? Do you know him ?” asked Doctor 
Haseldenj while Max, who had followed his father 
in, watched with intense interest and surprise. 

Mr. Wedmore did not seem to hear. He con- 
tinued to look at the dead face for some moments 
with an appearance of utter absorption, and then, 
suddenly staggering back, he made for the open air 
without a word of explanation. 

Max stared at the doctor, and then followed his 
father out. But Mr. Wedmore was already half 
way to the house, where he shut himself into the 
study, and locking the door, refused to be disturbed. 

' Max was more bewildered than ever by this new 
turn of affairs. With a dogged determination not 
to be kept any longer out of a secret of which 
everybody but himself seemed to know something, 
he went straight up to the sick-room in search of 
Carrie. His knock, however, was answered by the 
professional nurse, who opened the door and asked 
him what he wanted. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


318 


Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Max. “ At least — I 
wanted to know how Mr. Horne is now.” 

“ He won’t be so well to-night, I expect,” an- 
swered the nurse, tartly. “ There ’s been a great 
noise and disturbance outside, and he ’s heard 
something of it, and it ’s made him restless and 
curious. He is asking questions about it all the 
time, and he won’t be satisfied. He keeps asking 
for the other nurse, who is out taking her walk, as 
I tell him.” 

At this point Dudley’s voice was heard from the 
bed. “ Who ’s that at the door ? Who is it?” 

Max, after a moment’s hesitation, during which 
the nurse assumed an air of washing her hands of 
the whole matter, answered : 

“ Me, old chap — Max. How are you ?” 

Dudley sprang up in bed. The nurse folded her 
arms and frowned. 

“Come in, oh, come in, just one moment! I’ll 
be quiet, nurse, quite quiet. But I must see him— 
I must see somebody.” 

Max threw an imploring glance at the nurse, who 
refused to look at him. Then he went in. 

“ Only a minute — I won’t stay a minute.” 

The nurse shrugged her shoulders. 

“ It ’S against the doctor’s orders. I wash my 
hands of the consequences,” said she. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


319 


And, with her head held very high, she left the 
room. 

Max stood irresolute. By the look of excitement 
on Dudley's face, he judged that anything must be 
better for him than the eager suspense from which 
he was evidently suffering. This news of the death 
of the odious inhabitant of the house by the wharf 
must surely bring relief to him. As soon as they 
were alone together, Dudley burst out eagerly : 

“ That noise ! It 's no use deceiving me ; I know 
what it was. They were after him. Tell me — has 
he got away? Has my father got away ?” 


320 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

BACK TO LOVE AND LIFE. 

Max fell into a chair. He stared at Dudley for a 
few moments before he could speak. Dudley’s 
father ! The man supposed to have died years and 
years ago in an asylum abroad, was the person who 
had passed as “ Mrs. Higgs !” Even before he had 
had time to learn any of the details of the strange 
story, the outlines of it were at once apparent to 
the mind of Max. 

Here was, then, the explanation of the mysterious 
bond between Dudley and Mrs. Higgs ; here was 
the meaning of his visits to Limehouse. 

Dudley repeated his question before Max had 
recovered from the shock of his surprise. 

“ Yes,” said he at last, “ he has got away.” 

But Dudley detected some reserve in his manner, 
or perhaps his own suspicions were aroused. He 
looked searchingly at Max, and asked abruptly : 

“ Is he dead ?” 

Max looked at hini askance. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


321 


“ Yes,” he said at last. 

Dudley lay back in his pillows. 

“Thank God!” 

And Max knew by the look of intense relief on 
his friend’s face that he had done right in telling 
him the truth. 

But, indeed. Max could not guess how intense 
the relief was from the burden of the secret which 
Dudley had had to bear for so long ; and undoubt- 
edly the discovery that it was a secret no longer, 
that the necessity for concealment was now over, 
helped his recovery materially. 

1 Max told him, as briefly as possible, the details of 
the occurrence ; but he neither asked nor invited 
any more questions. 

It was not until some time afterward, when Dud- 
ley had left the sick-room, that the whole of the 
story became known to the family. But, in the 
meantime, the inquest on the body brought many 
facts to light. 

Mrs. Edward Jacobs, the widow of the man who 
had been found drowned in the Thames off Lime- 
house some weeks before, had been, so it was dis- 
covered, the person to give information to the police 
against Dudley, as the suspected murderer of her 
husband. She had traced to him the weekly postal 
orders, which she looked upon as blood-money, and 


322 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


she had then hung about his chambers, and on one 
occasion followed him to Limehouse, without, how- 
ever, penetrati^^ig farther than the entrance of the 
wharf. 

Upon the information given by her a warrant 
was issued against Dudley ; but in searching his 
chambers a number of letters were found, all ad- 
dressed to Dudley, which threw a new and lurid 
light upon the affair. The letters were written by 
the father to the son, and contained the whole story 
of his return to England a few months before ; of 
his anxiety to see his son ; his morbid fear of being 
recognized and shut up as a lunatic, and his equally 
morbid hankering after information concerning 
Edward Jacobs, the man who had ruined him. 

All these letters, which were directed in a feigned 
handwriting, seemed sane and sensible enough, 
although they showed signs of eccentricity of char- 
acter. 

The next batch were written after the disappear- 
ance of Edward Jacobs, and in them the signs of 
morbid eccentricity were more apparent. The 
writer owned to having “ put Jacobs out of the way,” 
upbraided Dudley for interfering on behalf of such 
a wretch, and accused him of ingratitude in refus- 
ing to leave England with his father, who had done 
mankind in general and him in particular a service 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


323 


in killing a monster. The writer went on to accuse 
Dudley of siding with his father’s enemies, of wish- 
ing to have him shut up, and told him that he should 
never succeed. 

Some of these letters were directed to The 
Beeches, and some to Dudley’s chambers, showing 
an intimate knowledge of his wlmreabouts. 

The latest letters were wilder, more bitter, show- 
ing how insanity which had broken out into violence 
before was increasing in intensity, and how the 
feelings of regard which he had seemed to enter- 
tain for his son had given place to strong resent- 
ment against him. 

After the reading of these letters, it was plain 
that the crime of murder which Mrs. Jacobs had 
laid to Dudley’s charge had been really the work of 
his father; and Mrs. Jacobs herself, on beingmade ac- 
quainted with these facts, agreed with this conclusion. 

There remained only the question of Dudley’s 
complicity in the crime to be considered, and that 
was a matter which could be left until the sick 
man’s recovery. 

It was on the first day of Dudley’s appearance in 
the family circle that the subject was broached, 
clumsily enough, by Mr. Wedmore, who was dying 
to know a great deal more than anybody had been 
willing to tell him. 


324 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


Dudley had come into the drawing-room, which 
had been well warmed for the occasion with a roar- 
ing fire, and it was here that they found him after 
luncheon, with the professional nurse beside him. 

The girls greeted him rather shyly, especially 
Doreen, but Mrs. Wedmore was motherly and gentle. 
Mr. Wedmore attacked him at once. 

“ I can’t understand, Dudley, why you kept it all 
so dark. Couldn’t you see for yourself that it was 
better for your father to be under restraint, as well 
as safer for other people ?” 

Mrs. Wedmore tried to interpose and to change 
the conversation to another subject, but Dudley 
said : 

I would rather explain now, once and for all. 
I shall be going away to-morrow, and there are 
several things which I should like to make clear 
first.” He paused, and Mrs. Wedmore, her daugh- 
ters and the nurse took the opportunity to leave the 
room. “ Now, Mr. Wedmore, tell me what you want 
to know.” 

“ Well, you told us nothing about your father’s 
being alive and back in England, for one thing.” 

“ It was by his wish that I kept it a secret. He 
persisted that he was sane ; he seemed to be sane. 
But he believed that if it were known that he was in 
England he would be shut up.” 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


325 


“ But the passing himself off as an old woman, 
this living in a sort of underground way, didn’t 
that look like madness ?” 

“ I took it for eccentricity and nothing more, 
until — until he sent for me one day, and brought 
me suddenly into a room — a little dark, bare room 
— where there was a man lying on the ground 
asleep, as I thought. My father told me to bring 
him into the next room, and — when I stooped to 
touch him ” — Dudley shuddered at the ghast- 
ly recollection — “ my hands were covered with 
blood.” 

Good gracious ! He had murdered him ?” 

“ Yes. And from that time he seemed a different 
man. I saw that he was mad. I tried to persuade 
him to give himself up, to let himself be put under 
restraint. I laid traps for him, trying to take him 
to an asylum. But he was too cunning forme, and 
all I got by it was to rouse in him a bitter feeling 
of hatred of myself.” 

‘‘ Why didn’t you give information — to the 
police, if necessary ?” 

How could I ? My own father ! I believed he 
would be hanged if he was caught. I believe so 
still. The last time I saw him he seemed sane, 
except for a feeling of irritation against me and 
against Carrie, who, it seems, is my half-sister. But 


326 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


he attacked me suddenly, knocked me on the head, 
and tried to drown me. There, now you know as 
much as I do. Can you wonder now that I was 
obliged to cut myself off from my friends, with 
such a burden as that on my mind ?” 

Mr. Wedmore was silent for a time. 

“ Poor lad !” he said at last. Poor lad ! I think 
you might have found some better way out of it 
than holding your tongue and shutting yourself up 
from all 5^our friends ; but, on the other hand, it was 
a jolly difficult position. Jolly difficult ! And so 
you never even told Max ?” 

“No, though I more than once felt inclined to. 
But it was such a ghastly business altogether that 
I thought I ’d better hold my tongue, especially as 
— I was afraid — it might filter through him to — to 
somebody else — somebody who couldn’t be told a 
beastly secret like that.” 

Mr. Wedmore nodded. 

“ And this girl — this Carrie ?” said he. 

Dudley’s face lighted up. 

“That’s my one comfort in all this,” said he, 
“ that it has led to my finding out the girl and doing 
something for her. I never heard of her before. 
But my father told me she was my half-sister, and 
they say there is something in our faces which con- 
firms the story. Anyhow, she ’s a grand girl. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


327 


and I’m going to look after her. She’s gone 
away — ” 

“ Gone away !” repeated Mr. Wedmore, discon- 
certed. 

There had been a lull in the quarrel between him 
and his son for the last few days, during which 
Carrie had avoided Max and Max had avoided his 
father. 

“Yes,” said Dudley. “She would go, and she 
thought it best to go without any fuss, leaving me 
to say good-bye for her. She ’s all right. I ’m going 
to look after her ; and she ’s going into training as 
a hospital nurse.” 

“ Oh, well, I ’m sure I hope she ’ll get on,” said 
Mr. Wedmore, rather vaguely. 

He had been getting used, during the last few 
days, to the thought of the pretty, blue-eyed girl 
as a daughter-in-law, and he found himself now 
rather hoping than fearing that Max would stick to 
his choice. 

“ Well,” said he at last, “ I must send the ladies to 
have a look at you now, I suppose. I wouldn’t let 
them talk my head off on the first day, if I were 
you.” 

Dudley sprang to his feet. He seemed restless 
and excited. 

“ I won’t talk much. I won’t let them talk much/’ 


328 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


said he, in an unsteady voice. “ But may I see — 
may I speak to Doreen T 

Mr. Wedmore nodded good-humoredly. 

“ Well, you may speak to her, if she ’ll let you,’* 
said he, cheerfully. “ But, really, she ’s a thorny 
young person. She ’s treated young Lindsay, the 
curate, very cruelly, and I ’m sure he ’s a much 
better looking fellow than you. However, you can 
try your luck.” 

Dudley did not wait for any more encourage- 
ment. No sooner had Mr. Wedmore left the room 
than the convalescent followed. He found Doreen 
in the hall, putting a handful of letters on the table 
ready for the post. She started when she turned 
and saw him, and, leaning back with her hands 
upon the table, she asked him what he meant by 
leaving the nice, warm, ox-roasting fire they had 
built up expressly for him upstairs. 

“ I hear you ’ve been treating the curate very 
badly,” said he. “ I Ve come to ask for an explana- 
tion.” 

Doreen looked down at the tip of her shoe, and, 
after a pause, said demurely : 

“ Well, I suppose if you don’t know the reason, 
nobody does.” 

“ Why, was it anything connected with me, 
then r 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


329 


So I have been informed/’ answered Doreen, 
more primly than ever. 

And then he waited for her to look up ; and when 
she did, he kissed her. And they didn’t exchange 
a word upon the subject of the long misunderstand- 
ing, but just strolled into the dining-room and saw 
pictures in the fire together. 

****** 

There was no trial and no scandal ; there were 
rumors, and that was all. Max remained true to 
his fancy for Carrie, and gave proof of his sincerity 
by settling down to work in a merchant’s office, 
after the manner so dear to his father’s heart. And 
in return, Mr. Wedmore consented to Carrie’s being 
invited down to The Beeches in the spring, to be 
present at Doreen’s wedding. 

And when Carrie came, several details concern- 
ing the life led by her and the supposed Mrs. 
Higgs in the house by the docks came to light, 
and the last remains of the mystery were cleared 
away. 

She told how her father, 'passing himself off as 
Mrs. Higgs, an old servant in the Horne family, of 
whom Carrie had heard in the lifetime of Miss 
Aldridge, had found her out, had touched her heart 
by a kindness evidently genuine, and had prevailed 
upon her to go and make her home in the deserted 


330 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


house, which, Mrs. Higgs said, had been intended 
for her by her late master. 

In the empty house they found that an entrance 
had been made into the adjoining warehouse, 
which had been used by a gang of thieves as a 
hiding-place for stolen goods. In the little front 
shop these ingenious persons had fashioned an in- 
genious hiding-place by hollowing out a tunnel to 
the river. Into this tunnel the water flowed at high 
tide ; but when the tide was low ah entrance could 
be effected from the river, by which the thieves 
could pass in and out, and in which they could 
safely deposit, in a chest in the slimy earth, prop- 
erty too valuable to be left above ground. 

Carrie explained how Mrs. Higgs fraternized 
with the thieves, before she herself guessed who 
they were, and how she had got used to them before 
she learned their character, though not before she 
had grown suspicious about them How she had seen 
Dudley with Mrs. Higgs, without knowing who he 
was, and how she had set him down as a suspicious 
character from the furtive manner of his visits. How 
she herself posted the two letters, the one to Edward 
Jacobs and the other to Dudley, which brought 
them to the place on the same day. How she her- 
self was sent out of the way on that occasion, and 
returned in time to witness, through the hole in the 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


331 


floor above, the stooping over the body by Dudley, 
and his drawing back covered with blood, which she 
took for the actual murder. How Mrs. Higgs and 
Dudley had then left the house together, while she 
was too sick with fright to move. How she had re- 
mained outside the house until she saw Max ; and 
how, when he was gone, and Mrs. Higgs had come 
back, she found that the manner of the supposed 
old woman had changed toward her and grown un- 
bearably cruel and harsh. How she had been left 
for days and nights by herself, until she resolved 
to bear it no longer. And how, when Mrs. Higgs 
had sent her to Dudley’s chambers with the mes- 
sage about Dick Barker, she had told her never to 
come back again. 

Carrie added that she herself had always been 
treated with kindness, not only by the gang, of 
whom, indeed, they saw little, but by such of the 
men and boys on the barges which came to the 
wharf as knew her, and “ winked ” at her un- 
authorized tenancy of the deserted house. 

In broad daylight, in the company of half a 
dozen policemen. Max and Dudley revisited the 
house together. They found the holes in the wall 
through which “ Mrs. Higgs ’’took stock of Max on 
the occasion of his first visit ; they tested the in- 
genious device by means of which the middle 


332 


The Wharf by the Docks, 


boards in the front shop could be made to fall and 
deposit anything laid upon them in the tunnel be- 
neath. They found the hole in which Mrs. Higgs 
had stepped, and the pole which had been used to 
underpin the middle boards. This hole extended 
under the floor of the kitchen, so that by creeping 
under the flooring from the one room to the other 
the pole could be withdrawn or replaced without 
the knowledge of a person in the front room. 

This final discovery explained to Max the manner 
in which the body of Jacobs had been made to dis- 
appear while he himself was in the room with it. 

The gang, of which the illustrious Dick Barker 
had formed one, had wisely diappeared, never to 
return. 

But one day, when Carrie, in her nurse’s dress, 
was walking along Oxford Street, in the compan}^ 
of Max, to whom, with Mr. Wedmore’s permission, 
she was now engaged, she felt a hand in her pocket, 
and turning quickly, found that she was having her 
purse stolen, for auld lang syne,” by Dick Barker. 

Max recognized in the well-dressed young man, 
with the low type of face, the man whom he had 
once supposed to be his rival. 

As Dick promptly disappeared, Carrie and Max 
looked at each other, and the girl burst into 
tears. 


The Wharf by the Docks. 


333 


“ Oh, Max, if it hadii ’t been for you — ” whispered 
she, as she dried her eyes quickly and hurried on 
with him. 

“ And, oh, Carrie, if it hadn’t been for you — ” 
whispered Max back, as he took her into the shop 
of the Hungarian Bread Company, and made her 
have a cup of tea. 

THE END. 


A Novel of Strange Adventures. 


A Treasure Found== 

A Bride Won 


BY 

George E. Gardner. 


t 

With Illustrations by Warren B. Davis. 


12mo. 407 Pagres. Handsomely Bound in Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

Paper Cover, 60 Cents. 


This novel is a record of adventure in the Eastern seas, full of 
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is good descriptive work in the story, and it well repays perusal 
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story in it which grips attention at the start, and never relaxes its 
hold upon the reader until the end. The author has made good 
in this work his right to be numbered among the popular authors 
who introduce us to new and captivating fields of action. The 
world is becoming so narrow and well-travelled that our best 
writers enlarge its borders by the aid of imagination, and this 
faculty is the secret of their charm. 

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Florence Warden’s Great Novel. 


The Mystery of the 
Inn by the Shore 


BY 

Florence Warden, 

Author of ''The House on the Marsh” etc. 


With Illustrations by Charles Kendi*ick. 


12mo. 314 Pagres. Handsomely Bound in Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

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This is the $i,ooo prize story recently published in the New 
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were over one hundred thousand competing answers for the cash 
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intelligent readers. 

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A Woman *s Book. 


1 


w- - - . _ ■ . -•> ' 

The House by the River. 


BY 

Barbara Kent. 


With Illustrations by Warren B. Davis. 

12mo. 328 Pag-es. Handsomely Botmd in Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

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The House by the River” is a woman’s book from beginning 
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the city of New York and in familiar localities. In the opening 
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which the plot hinges, and which give a deep and thrilling inter- 
est to the development of the romance of two young lives. The 
vindictiveness of a man who has been compelled to do right under 
humiliating circumstances gives a strong motive to the whole 
action of the story. Every reader will be gratified by the way in 
which the conclusion is reached. 

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THE CHOICE SERIES. 


No. AND Title. 


Author. 


2— Henry M. Stanley Henry Frederick Reddall 

Double Ijite Mrs. Harriet Lewis 

^-Unknown.. Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southwortli. 

5 — The Guiinmker ol Moscow... Sylvanus Cobb, Jr 

Major A. R. Calhoun 

7— The Hidden Hand Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth. 

8 — Sundered Hearts^ Mrs, Harriet Lewis 

9 — The Stone-Cutter of Lisbon.. Prof. Wm. Heury Peck i 

liiidare Mrs. Harriet liowis. 

io Rock...„ Captain Mayne Reid. 


Dearest Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southwortli! “.!!* 

Dark Mrs. E. D. E. N. South worth 

to — The Old Life’s Shadows Mrs. Harriet Lewis 

16— The Lost Lady of Lone Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southwortli 

1^ — lone Laura Jean Libbey 

18— For Woman’s Love Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth 

19— Cesar Birotteau Honore De Balzac 

20— The Baroness Blank August Niemann 

21— Parted by Fate Laura Jean Libbey 

22— The Forsaken Inn Anna Katharine Green 

23— Ottiiie 4ster’s Silence Mrs. D. M. Lowrey 

24— £dda’s Birthright Mrs. Harriet Lewis 

25— The Alchemist Honore De Balzac 

26— Under Oath Jean Kate Ludlum 

27 — Cousin Pons Honore De Balzac 

28— The Unloved Wife Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth 

29— Lilith “ “ “ 

30— Reunited A Popular Southern Author 

31— Mrs. Harold Stags Robert Grant 

32— The Breach of Custom.... — Mrs. D. M. Lowrey. (Translator).. 

33 — The Northern Light E. Werner 

34 — Beryl’s Husband Mrs. Harriet Lewis 

36— A Love Match Sylvanus Cobb, Jr 

36— A Matter of Millions Anna Katharine Green 

37— Eugenie Grandet Honore De Balzac 

38— The Iinprovisatore Hans Christian Andersen 

39— Paoli, the Warrior Bishop... W. C. Kitchin 

40— Under a Cloud Jean Kate Ludlum 

41 — ^Wite and Woman Mary J. Safford 

42— An Insignificant Woman.. — W. Heim burg 

43— The Carletons Robert Grant 

44— Mademoiselle Desroches Andre Theuriet 

45— The Beads of Tasiner Mrs. Amelia E. Barr 

46— John WInthrop’s Defeat Jean Kate Ludlum 

47— Little Heather- Blossom MaryJ. Safford. (Translator) 

48— Gloria Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth 

49— David Lindsay “ “ “ 

50— Tlie Little Countess S. E. Boggs. (Translator) 

51— The Chaiitauquans John Habberton 

52— The Two Husbands Mrs. Harriet Lewis 

63— Mrs, Barr’s Short Stories.... Mrs. Amelia E. Barr 

64— We Parted at the Altar Laura Jean Libbey 

66— Was She Wife or Widow?... Malcolm BeR 

66— The Country Doctor Honore De Balzac 

67— Florabel’s Lover Laura Jean Libbey 

68— Lida Campbell Jean Kate Ludlum 

69— Edith Trevor’s Secret Mrs. Harriet Lewis 

60— Cecil Rosse - ‘‘ ^ “ 

61 — Love is Lord of All From the German 

62— True Daughter of HartensteiuFrom the German 

63— Zina’s Awaking Mrs. J. Kent Spender 

64— Morris Julian’s Wife Elizabeth Olmis 

65— Dear Elsie From the German 

66— The Hungarian Girl “ ‘‘ - 

67— Beatrix Rohan Mrs. Harriet Lewis 

68— A Son of Old Harry Albion W. Tourgee 

69 — ^Romance of Trouville Brehat 

70— Life of General Jackson Oliver Dyer. 

71— The Return of the O’Mahony. Harold Frederic....... 

72— Reuben Foreman, the Village Blacksmith. Darley Dale 

73— Neva’s Three Lovers.... Mrs. HaraietLewis... 

74_‘‘p:ni” MrSf E. D. E. N. Southworth 

75-“ Em’s” Husband 


Cloth. Paper. 

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THE CHOICE SERIES==Continued. 


No. AND Title, 


Author, 


76 

77 

78 

79 

80 
81- 
82 

83 

84 

85 

86 

87- 

88 - 
89- 

90 

91 
92- 

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111 - 
112 - 
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114 

115 

116 
117- 
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121 - 
122 
123 

124- 

125- 
126 

127 

128 


-The Haunted Husband Mrs, Harriet Lewis 

-The Siberian Exiles Col. Thomas W, Knox 

-The Spanish Treasure Elizabeth C, Winter 

-The Kinj? of Honey Island — Maurice Thompson - 

-:>Iate of the “Easter Bell Mrs. Amelia E, Barr 

-The Child of the Parish Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 

Miss Mischief- W. Heimburg 

The Honor of a Heart From the German... 

■Transgressing the Law Capt. Frederick Whittaker 

■Hearts and Coronets Jane G. Fuller 

Tressilian Court Mrs. Harriet Lewis 

•Guy Tressiliau’s Fate “ “ 

Mynheer Joe 8t. George Rathbome 

The Froler Case From the French by H. O. Cooke... 

■A Priestess of Comedy Nataly von Eschstruth 

All or Nothing Count Nepomuk Czapski 

A Skeleton in the Closet Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth 

-Brandon Coyle’s Wife “ “ “ 

Love Hon ore De Balzac 

■The Tell-Tale Watch From the German 

■Hetty; or the Old Grudge — J. H. Connelly 

•Girls of a Feather Mrs. Amelia E. Barr 

•Appassioiiata Elsa D’Esterre- Keeling 

Only a Girl’s Heart Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth 

The Iteiected Bride “ “ “ 

Gertrude Haddon “ “ “ 

Countess Dynar, or Polish Blood. Nataly von Eschstruth 

A Sleep-Walker Paul H. Gerrard 

A Lover From Across the Sea and Other Slories. E. Werner.. 

A Princess of tlie Stage Nataly von Eschstruth 

Countess Obernau JuUen Gordon 

The Gun- Bearer E, A. Robinson and G. A. Wall 

Wooing a Widow Ewald August Koenig 

Her Little Hig^liness Nataly von Eschstruth 

In the China Sea Seward W. Hopkins 

Invisible Hands F. von Zobeltitz 

Yet She Loved Him Mrs, Kate Vaughn 

The Mask of Beauty Fanny Lewald 

Two Gentlemen of Hawaii.. Seward W. Hopkins 

The Shadow of the Guillotine Sylvanus Cobb, Jr 

Mystery of Hotel Brichet Eugene Chavette 

Blanche of Burgundy Sylvanus Cobb, Jr 

The Opposite House Nataly von Eschstruth 

The Flower of Gala Water.. Mrs. Amelia E. Barr 

For Another’s Wrong W. Heimburg 

On a False Charge Seward W. Hopkins 

•A Treasure Found— A Bride Won. George E. Gardner 

The House Iw the River Barbara Kent 

•At a Great Cost Effle Adelaide Rowlands 

-The Meredith Marriage Haroid Payne 

■Holdenhurst Hall Walter Bloomfield 

■Little Kit.. Effle Adelaide Rowlands 

-The Mystery of the Inn by the Shore. Florence Warden 


III. 1 APER. 

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For sale by all Booksellers and Newsdealers, or sent 
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